THE ARCHITECTURE OF HANS SCHAROUN:
Practice
1933
-
1945
by
James Adam Anderson
Master of Architecture
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1985
Bachelor of Science in Art and Design
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1976
SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF
ARCHITECTURE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE STUDIES
at the
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
September 1985
Copyright (c) James A. Anderson 1985
Signature of Author
Depar
Certified
Jamel Adam Anderson
ent of Architecture
25 June 1985
by
S'
fiord Anderson
Professor of History and Architecture
Thesis Supervisor
Accepted by
I
Chairman, Departmental Commit ee For Graduate Students
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-3-
THE ARCHITECTURE OF HANS SCHAROUN:
Practice
1933 -
1945
by
James Adam Anderson
Submitted to the Department of Architecture on
25 June 1985 in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Science in
Architecture Studies.
Abstract
This document ,is an account of the work of the architect Hans
Bernhard Scharoun according to a method which represents the
practice of architecture as the execution of a "research
programme". The attempt is made to represent the course of
events within the discipline of architecture during the years
1933 to 1945 as the confluence of a number of competing
research programmes.
References to the individual projects which issued from
Scharoun's practice during this period disclose the
interaction between his programme and competing contemporary
programmes, and contribute to an account of transformations
in his programme. A description of the institutional
framework prevailing in Germany under National Socialism, of
the efforts to implement a programme of "total" architecture,
and, in particular, of the effect on Hans Scharoun's practice
during this period, demonstrates that:
- These institutions were not a monolithic front
capable of implementing a consistent, "total"
programme for architecture. This is explained as a
product of the particular historical circumstances
which governed the formation of those institutions
and limited their influence, and as the consequence
of the nature of National Socialist fascism.
- The disjunctions and inconsistencies present in
these institutions allowed a reduced, yet
authentic, form of Scharoun's programme to continue
to develop and progress, despite the apparently
untenable circumstances.
The course of his practice is explained as the consequence of
the insulating boundaries and mediative paths developed at
the confluence of the programmes which correspond to
Scharoun's practice and to these institutions. The events
are recounted as manifestations of correspondence and
disjunction in the composition and interaction of the
respective programmes.
The presentation of Scharoun's work shows that he was able to
persist, to apply his programme, and to maintain its thematic
essence, in the presence of a dominant incommensurate
programme because, as a progressive programme, it tolerated
internal disjunctions. It also shows that disjunctions which
were maintained within the fascist programme in order to
project the degree of completeness which the ideology
demanded, made it impossible to eliminate unorthodoxy of the
sort represented by Scharoun's work.
Thesis Supervisor:
Title:
Stanford Anderson
Professor of History and Architecture
Table of Contents
-5-
Table of Contents
Abstract
Table of Contents
3
5
1. Introduction
9
2. Context
2.1 Overview
14
14
3. Method
3.1 Historiographic Framework
3.2 Architectural Practice as a Research Programme
3.2.1 Mechanism of Application
3.2.2 Architectural References
3.2.3 Institutional References
3.3 Institutional Context
29
29
32
37
46
49
50
4. Account
4.1 Scharoun's Practice
4.1.1 Circumstances
4.1.2 Components
4.1.2.1 Ideology
4.1.2.2 Image
4.1.2.3 Body of Knowledge
4.2 Institutional Programmes
4.2.1 Pre-1933 (Weimar) Institutions
4.2.1.1 Bauordnung
4.2.1.2 Bau- und Finanzministerium (Domaene
Dahlem)
4.2.1.3 Professional Societies (BDA)
4.2.2 National Socialist Institutions
4.2.2.1 Bauordnung
4.2.2.2 Bau- und Finanzministerium (Domaene
Dahlem)
4.2.2.3 Professional Societies (RKBk)
4.2.2.4 Massnahmen fuer Siedlungswesen
4.2.2.5 Verordnung ueber Baugestaltung
4.2.2.6 Neugestaltung
4.2.2.7 Anzeigepflicht
4.2.2.8 Neubauverbot
4.2.2.9 Technical Standards
4.3 Commentary
4.3.1 National Socialist Presence
4.3.2 Scharoun's Practice
54
55
55
58
58
66
81
89
89
89
92
94
97
99
101
103
104
106
109
110
112
112
115
115
129
-6-
Table of Contents
4.3.2.1 Collaborators
4.3.2.2 Influence
4.3.2.3 Continuous Development
4.3.2.4 image
4.3.3 Assessment
129
130
134
148
159
Appendix A. List of Works
A.1 Projects 1927-1932
A.2 Projects 1933-1945
161
162
167
Appendix B. Bibliography
171
Appendix C. Abbreviations
189
Appendix D. List of Figures
190
Table of Contents
-7-
"It is only in the relation between things and
ideas that truth can be reasonably judged.
The inconceivable quality of German fascism is its
essence. It demonstrates that it can no longer be
approached on a theoretical level.
Theories search continuously for causes. The planned
can have no
destruction of six million people, ...
causes. And each attempt, to construct them in spite
of that, must be rejected."
Wolfgang Pohrt (Sellout, 1980)
"Eine polierte metalkugel ist zwar ein phantastische angelegenheit fur unsere geist, aber eine
blute ist ein erlebnis"
Hugo Haering (1925)
"Hier eine kleine Welt, da eine kleine Welt"
"Hauptsache: Bewegung !"
Hans Scharoun
I wish to thank Professor Stanford Anderson, the German
Academic Exchange Program, and the Academy of Arts, Berlin
for their support on this project.
-8-
Table of Contents
-9-
Introduction
Chapter 1
Introduction
This thesis examines the practice of the architect Hans
Scharoun. It concentrates on his work during the years 1933
to 1945, to disclose the effect the contemporary
circumstances may have had on his work.
As this particular period of his career begins, Germany
is under the rule of National Socialism. Scharoun has moved
from Breslau to Berlin, as the Breslau Academy of Arts has
been closed. His office, in Berlin, with Rading is being
dissolved, as Rading is forced to emigrate, and contracts
become scarce.
The most prominent advocates of modern design
principles will also emigrate.
German artists will lose the
privileges of expression which they had acquired during the
Weimar period. The innovative stylistic principles which had
been indispensable to modern architects prior to 1933 will be
excluded from the sanctioned principles of practice.
In spite of the ominous events, this particular period
of Scharoun's career was selected, as it affords an
opportunity to isolate essential qualities of the architect's
work.
Scharoun was not the only modern architect who
Introduction
-10-
remained in Germany during these years,[1]
and while the
work of each architect who remained should be examined,
Scharoun's case provides both the broadest field of projects
and an instance of the most marked transformation.
Changes in this work can, when related to changes in the
context, indicate the presence of stable themes which
informed the architect's designs. Those principles which may
be shown to govern changes in his work in response to the
rise of National Socialist fascism, may be recognized as
essential elements of his architecture.
This account follows the architect along a deliberate
personal path through shifting and contradictory networks of
ideas, beliefs, and ideals. It is an account of those events
which made such a path possible.
In contrast to an account
of the design of a single work, or the development of a
particular design philosophy, this account of a practice
pursues the architect throughout the course of his career.
Rather than seek essential causes for events or explain
deterministic influences leading to a design philosophy, It
1. Many of the proponents of Neues Bauen (in the sense
distinct from the "new architecture") remained. Doecker,
Haering, Lauterbach, Maechler, Haesler, Max Taut, and the
Luckhardt brothers present other examples.
-11-
Introduction
attempts to employ a consistent systematic method to recount
Scharoun's practice and to depict a context for his work, in
order to provide a basis to demonstrate interaction between
the two.
To undertake such a task for this period in German history
introduces serious methodological difficulties. First, the
documentary base, upon which such an endeavor depends, is not
as rich as one would hope. In addition, the conditions of
life under fascism and the policies of the fascist government
smothered any unorthodox discourse.[2]
Those documentary
materials which escaped destruction during the war are
divided among Eastern and Western archives.
The only
consolation is that only one of Scharoun's houses was
destroyed during the war.
The disjunction between the Scharoun's personal beliefs
and the professional standard make it impossible to relate
the architect's intentions and achievements directly to the
social and professional context.
Too many of the beliefs
2. The most damaging manifestations of this were the
wholesale burning of nonconformist or critical art and
literature in May 1933 (See (Serke.1980). Hitler's
statements on culture . (See (Wulf.1983, p.126f, p360f)
Introduction
-12-
which had contributed to the development of his work were no
longer acceptable in practice. A cursory examination of the
objects of his practice[3]
does not indicate that Scharoun
had repudiated his previous work.
This would lead one to
believe that he had pursued his practice as some form of a
continuation of his work prior to 1933.[4]
Yet, in light of
the stylistic contrast between his work before 1933 and that
executed after 1945, it seems more accurate to expect some
form evolution and development during these years.
In order to demonstrate this, the methodology of
"scientific research programmes" is employed as a means to
discuss the various forces which impinged upon an architect,
and to demonstrate their interaction.
by Y. Elkana[5]
The approach presented
and applied to the practice of architecture
by S. Anderson[6]
is modified in accord with the distinction
which must be made between the pursuit of science and the
practice of architecture in Germany under National Socialism.
3. See Appendix A
4. Both his limited direct reference to his work during this
period (see (Pfankuch.1974, p.116f)) and his contemporary
correspondence (see (Anderson.1985, p.459f)) support this.
5. (Elkana.1982)
6. (Anderson.1984)
Introduction
-13-
Using this methodology to present Scharoun's practice, I
intend to assess the significance of the architectural work
produced by Scharoun during this period.
Context
-14-
Chapter 2
Context
2.1 Overview
The twenties and early thirties had been years of
remarkable transformation in the field of architecture. The
practice had recovered from the years of minimal
reconstruction and inactivity following World War I, to set
its sights on a new society and on the built forms which
would foster it. Whether architects followed a progressive
ideal, or pursued conservative revision, they shared the
conviction that their search for architectural forms would
contribute to their cause. The most visible progressive
developments were reforms in the education of architects[l]
and the work of those avant-garde architects who had achieved
positions of authority in municipal design departments and
private building societies.
Whether one took a position on architectural design
l
Such as those at the Bauhaus and the State Academy of Art
in Breslau. See (Wingler.1977)
Overview
-15-
methodology as radical as that of Hannes Meyer,[2]
conservative as Heinrich Tessenow[3]
concern.
or was as
there was a common
One principle common to the core beliefs of all
modern designers was the desire to realize a more genuine
relation between the designs which architects were producing,
and the social and economic order which was beginning to
dominate life during the first decades of this century. As
architects addressed the contingent class structure and the
conditions of production, their concerns began to coalesce in
images of the tasks architects were to perform in the coming
decades.
For the architects affiliated with Neues Bauen
these concerns were expressed as attempts to represent the
2. See (Schnaidt.1965, p34: the Federation School of the
General German Trade Union) or (Meyer.1980, p100f). He
propounds a collective design method which depends on a
strictly hierarchical model of architectural knowledge to
proceed from decomposition of a problem to a final design
by building up independent component solutions.
3.
See (Tessenow.1961).
Overview
-16-
"material quality of use",[4]
or they appeared as systematic
attempts to program and design new plan types to correspond
to new purposes.[5]
The most prominent proponent of Neues Bauen was Adolf
Behne.
His writings[6]
analyse designs according to
4. Although most visible as a controversy surrounding the
place of ornament in.design, this was an instance of a
more general question of the relation of between physical
forms and social orders, and of the effects of
transformations within the respective realms. See
(Mueller,1984,p19):
"Die Avantgarde der Moderne hat die Verwendung
des Ornaments als Versoehnungsparadigma rigoros
abgelehnt. >Keine Zuckerzangen als Kompensation
fuer die alltaeglich erfahrene Dominanz der
Geburtszangen!< Auch das haette ihr motto sein
koennen. Man mag dazu stehen , wie man will.
Konsequent war diese Haltung gegenueber dem zur
Antinomie erstarrten Verhaeltnis der Kuenstlerischen und der praktischen Gestaltung des Lebens,
bei dem die praktischen Seite auf der Strecke zu
bleiben drohte. Und mit der "oraktischen Seite"
ist in der Avantgarde vor allem in den 20er Jahren
die >soziale< Seite des Bauens gemeint. Deshalb
auch hat die Avantgarde in ihren besten Entwuerfen
und Ausfuehrungen versucht, an den zu gestaltenden
Zwecken etwas sinnlich zur Anschauung zu bringen,
was -
bei aller Sympathie fuers Ornament -
immer
mehr sein wird als bester Schmuck und bestes
Ornament: ich meine die >sinnlichen Eigenschaften
des Gebrauchwerts<."
5. See (Banham.1960).
6. eg: (Behne.1926), (Behne.1927), and (Behne.1923).
Overview
-17-
purpose:
the new programs were to lead to new spatial forms
- not new appearances. He proposes an architecture which
looks beyond the debate over new styles and visual aesthetic
to examine the spatial representation of transformations
taking place in society. W.C.Behrendt propounded a similar
position,[7]
although his approach was more pragmatic. The
research and the design work of A.Klein[8]
demonstrate a
similar search for means to accommodate social transformations. He sought, in particular, to appropriate the middle
class spatial program for the working classes on moderate
terms through refinements in plan topology and in dwelling
furnishing and finishing.
On the other hand designers were conscious that the
artifacts of design represented material culture. Self
conscious design was ascribed the ability to fabricate
culture. Architects, trained to design, became responsible to
identify that culture, and to determine the forms which best
represented it.
The work at the Bauhaus moved in this direction. At the
7. eg:
(Behrendt.1927).
8. eg: (Klein.1929).
Overview
-18-
center of their efforts to reform architectural culture
through radical changes in the education of architects, was
the search for a visually based formal vocabulary. As Behne
remarked, at the occasion of the Bauhaus exhibition in
Weimar:
"Practical necessities should be so organized,
that- the form issues directly from this organization
- a form which is so precise and so convincingly
clear, that it rejects any additional
adornments."[9]
Gropius was explicit regarding the responsibility the
designer assumed:
"Der mensch erfindet durch seine Intuition, durch
seine metaphysische Kraft, die er aus dem All saugt,
den stofflosen Raum des Scheins-und der inneren
Schauung, der Visionen und Einfaelle; er fuehlt die
Zusammenhaenge seiner Erscheinungsmittel, der Farbe,
Formen, Toene und versinnlicht mit ihnen Gesetze,
Masze uns Zahlen. Aber dieser Raum der Schauung
draengt zur Verwirkluchung in der stofflichen Welt;
mit Geist - und Handwerk wird der Stoff bezwungen.
"Das Hirn erdenkt den mathematischen Raum kraft
des Verstandes durch Rechnung und Messung. Ueber die
Gesetze der Mathematik, Optik, und Astronomie schafft
es ein Vorstellungs- und Darstellungsmittel fur den
zu erbauenden stofflichen Raum der Wirklichkeit durch
das Mittel der Zeichnung.
"Die Hand begreift den tastbaren stofflichen Raum
der Wirklichkeit, der auszer uns liegt; sie erbaut
9.
(Behne.1923)
-19-
Overview
ihn in der Realitaet nach den Gesetzen des Stoffs und
der Mechanik und miszt und waegt die stoffliche
Substanz, die ihn bestimmt, und ihre Festigkeit
ebenso wie ihre mechanischen und konstruktiven
Eigenschaften. Sie meistert ihn durch das Koennen des
Handwerks mit hilfe von Werkzeug und Maschine."[10]
"The goal of this work lies in being able to draw
out the greatest possible variability from dwellings.
The solution of this important problem must be sought
in assemblage of typed components to form the various
dwelling organizations. That is to say, to proceed
from the new technical and spatial suppositions, to
create full scale building blocks, with which one can
piece together various dwelling machines based on the
number and needs of the inhabitants."[11]
Hugo Haering took yet another position with regard to
the designer's responsibility.
He proposed that designer's
were to continue to seek beyond solutions for material
problems to develop forms which "functioned" on a spiritual
plane. He would eventually arrive at the formulation
Only the non-essential can be standardized.
It is not a question of research into the superficial
technical spatial requirements, but rather of inquiry
into the goals to be set for the pedagogical
10. (Gropius.1965, p35)
11. (ibid, p56) See, for example, the Dammerstock and Torten
housing estates (Gropius.1972).
Overview
-20-
task[12] The form of the built environment grows out
of the research into these essentials
Nur unwesentliches kann genormt werden
Es galt nicht nur der ueblichen erforschung der
aeuszern technischen raumansprueche, sondern den zu
In der
setzenden zielen der erzieherischen arbeit.
erforschung der wesenheit wuchs die gestalt der
bauanlage heran.[13]
In the housing field, the problems created by migration
to the cities, and by the economic depression of the late
twenties and early thirties fostered a search, on the part
architects of every persuasion, for alternative material and
conceptual approaches to design and construction.
Designers
recognized the necessity to bring the means and forms of
housing production into agreement with the economic and
material circumstances, with the conditions of industrial
development and concentration, and with the stratification of
urban classes.
As a consequence of these pressures,
designers were forced to align themselves with the classes
whose representation they felt most significant to realizing
their image of society.
12. Although he refers here specifically to Scharoun's design
for the Darmstadt School Competition, his use of the term
elsewhere implies that the purpose of all architecture is
pedagogical
13. (Haering.1951)
-21-
Overview
Thus, at the same time as modern designers shared an
image of their problem, their positions began to diverge
ideologically.
Thus, for example, although the concept of
type figured prominently in projective work of many
architects during the twenties.
this ideal could only have
been frustrated, when presented with the contemporary,
impoverished and outmoded industrial base. This fostered the
desire for centralized reorganization of housing production
and an affiliation with some political institution. May's
work in Frankfurt, Gropius's work at the Bauhaus and on
industrialized settlements, and LeCorbusier's work in Pessac
were all experiments working towards the mass realization of
a housing prototype. The numerous publications, competitions,
and exhibitions related to modular houses[14]
indicate the
widespread interest a more flexible approach to the problem,
formulated in the interests of the working class.
Contemporary with these attempts, among designers, to
reform the design professions, efforts were underway to
create an institutional and industrial basis for further
reforms in the fields of design. The most visible work would
include that carried out by such men as Emil Rathenau and
14. (Wagner.1932), (Neufert.1932)
Overview
-22-
Edwin Redslob.
Rathenau had, as the founder of the AEG, had
placed Behrens in a position to develop a coherent industrial
style which would represent AEG in the world of commerce.
Redslob was the first head of the office of the
"Reichskunstwart" established by the German federal
government, after World War I, to support reforms in the
arts. One of his responsibilities was to offer adviceregarding professional standards in the practice of
architecture.
When, by the early thirties, housing production was in
such disarray that no individual would have been realistic to
attempt to rectify the situation, appeals were made to
centralized authorities. It was hoped that they could,
through regulation, develop a unified national housing
development program.[15]
By the early thirties, however, the common efforts to
approach the problems of design within modern constraints had
yielded to divisive pressures. The field of practitioners
separated into competing groups. Those institutions, which
continued to act through the twenties and thirties, chose
15. See (Deutsche Bauzeitung, 111.33)
-23-
Overview
sides in the competition for influence over the built
environment. Industrial interests compromised their commitment to the ideological propositions associated with modern
design, even as they continued to depend on the technical
innovations.
-Reactionary interests had worked to undermine the
efforts of avant-garde modern architects to develop
architecture as in instrument to support social change.[16]
A "Heimatschutz" movement had developed in broad middle class
support for indigenous styles.[17]
The more radical modern
designers had begun to turn to foreign countries as grounds
to develop their ideas.[18]
The conservative executives of
the Republic closed off institutional support for modern
design initiatives in 1932.[19]
16. The Kampfbund fuer deutsche Kultur was founded on 4.
April 1928 to work, throughout Germany, against modern
designers. The Block was established in June 1928, by
conservative architects in Berlin, to counteract the
Ring. (see (Teut.1967, pl6f))
17.
(Petsch.1980, p.88)
18. The competition for the Palace of the Soviet had been a
point of hope, and disappointment for modern architects.
Hannes Meyer, Ernst May, and Bruno Taut chose to pursue
their respective practices in Russia.
19. Bruening's October 1931 austerity plan froze all publicly
funded construction for the next thirty months.
Overview
-24-
There were also disputes among the modern designers.
Behne noted,[20]
As
Scharoun, Haering, and Rading were absent
from the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition. The proponents of the "New
Building" had withdrawn from CIAMJ21]
and from the
Werkbund.[22]
-Scharoun's work during these years indicates that, just
as the profession was seeking a path to follow, he was
experimenting with various approaches.
Some projects were
committed to developing "functional forms" according to
organic principles. Other projects show the presence of
abstract grids or spatial compositions. There is no apparent
evolutionary development.
Contemporary projects occasionally
embody conflicting principles. This could even be the case
with a single design.
20.
(Behne.1932)
21. Haering was the only member of that sector of the Ring in
attendance at the 1928 CIAM congress. He withdrew on the
grounds that the congress made a premature, unjudicious
decision, to restrict attention to Le Corbusier's
principles. See (Steinmann,1979) and (Joedicke.1965,
p1l).
22. Lauterbach, Scharoun, and Rading withdrew as a result of
the controversy which surrounded the Schlesische Werkbund
exhibition. (see (Frank.1983))
-25-
Overview
RIO
III
Figure 2-2:
Breslau-Zimpel Schule
Figure 2-1:
Bochum Rathaus
IL
Figure 2-3:
Berlin Justizgebaeude
Fiqure 2-4:
Friedrichstrasze competition
Projects for the Bochum Rathaus, the Breslau-Zimpel Schule,
or the Berlin Justizgebaeude isolated formal decisions within
levels of a conceptual hierarchy.
They are similar, in
conceptual organization, to work by H.Meyer[23]
W.Gropius.[24]
or
In contrast to these, in his entry to the
23. See (Schnaidt.1965, p.40): the Federation School of the
General German Trade Unions.
24. See (Gropius.1972): the Fagus Factory or the Dammerstock
Housing Estate.
Overview
-26-
Friedstrasze competition and his Stock exchange proposal the
facades were composed as fields rather than hierarchies, and
the plans were developed based on access continuity.
Figure 2-5:
Friedrichstrasze competition
Figure 2-6:
Stock exchange
The "Weite" house design was developed based on abstract,
overlapping grids and planes, while in the prefabricated
exehibition houses the plans were assembled from modular
elements.
a0
Figure 2-7:
"Weite" house design competition
Figure 2-8:
GuGaLi prefabricated exhibition house
At the outset, I held the conviction that Scharoun was
-27-
overview
part of isolated group of architects, comprising
Haering[25]
,
Rading[26]
,
and Li.[27]
These architects,
occasionally identified as the proponents of "organic
expressionism", represented an alternative to the mainstream
"rational" modernism which was the most visible source of
innovation in the practice of architecture in the period up
to 1933.
After sifting through archival materials, it appears
that the links were much broader, encompassing many more of
his contemporaries, and reaching out towards the east, to
Czechoslovakia, and Austria.
His teaching at the Breslau
25. Hugo Haering (1882-1958) had studied with Theodor Fischer
in Munich. He was a contemporary of Mies v.d. Rohe - for
a period the two maintained a common office space. In
1935 he assumed leadership of the Reimann school in
Berlin, changing the title "Kunst und Werk".
26. Adolf Rading (1888-1957) had worked in both Endell's
(1911) and Behrens' (1919) offices. From 1919 to 1932 he
taught in the architectural design program at the Breslau
Academy of Art. In 1923 August Endell appointed him
director of that program. As a member of the Schlesische
Werkbund, he participated in the "Werk und Wohnraum"
exhibition (1929) in Breslau. Between 1927 and 1933 he
collaborated with Scharoun in Berlin. He emigrated in
1934. See (Pfankuch.1970).
27. Chen Kwan Li came to Berlin in the mid-thirties, as a
student. He apprenticed himself to Scharoun in 1935 and
remained with the office until 1942. He contributed to
the design for the Baensch, Moeller, Scharf, Weigand, and
Weidhass houses.
-28-
Overview
Academy not only brought him into contact with Heinrich
Lauterbach and Oskar Schlemmer, it brought him close to
activities in Austria and Czechoslovakia. Lubomir Slapeta,
from his masters' class, joined his office in Berlin in 1932,
and contributed to designs through 1935. Through Haering's
links to the Austrian Werkbund[28]
Scharoun would have had a
degree of contact to Loos.
While Scharoun shared aspects of his approach with other
modernists, the particular constellation he had developed by
1933 would make it possible for him to conserve the
essential, progressive aspects of the original modern
innovation in the presence of this conservative swing,
whereas proponents of other modernist branches had lost
contact with those origins.
28. He participated in the Austrian Werkbund's 1932
exhibition.
-29-
Method
Chapter 3
Method
3.1 Historiographic Framework
Objective, concrete descriptions of Scharoun's work have
not been sufficient to comprehend its the nature. Most
accounts seek to represent his practice as a continuous
development of his position as an "organic
expressionist".[l]
from the twenties through the eighties.
While this does correspond to the most visible qualities of
his practice, it serves neither to make the expressionist
component less arcane, nor to illuminate the particular
qualities which have contributed to its particular course of
development. In some cases, aspects of his practice have been
neglected, in others periods of his practice have been
dismissed.[2]
Most frequently, in order not to overlook his
works, they have been judged according to principles which
the work itself rejected.[3]
1.
Yet it would also be
See (Pfankuch.1974).
2. This is true, in particular, of the projects from the
thirties. (see (Pfankuch.1974))
3. See (Borsi.1967), (Jones.1983)
-30-
Historiographic Framework
inadequate to preempt such presentations by simply tracing
the stages of the architect's practice relativisticly. This
would only undermine efforts to demonstrate interaction
between Scharoun and his context.
In order to resolve that dilemma, this account requires
some form of description which accommodates the architect's
work and beliefs as a collection of distinct propositions,
each of which may demonstrate some independent relation to
the other propositions and to properties associated with
external circumstances.
If this can be done without
entailing a prejudicial order among those propositions, that
would make it possible to track shifts in aspects of the
architect's principles in response to influence, at the same
time as other properties remained constant.
This description will be accomplished within a framework
established by Elkana for use in the historiography of
science.[4]
Elkana was concerned to move beyond
"demarcation between external and internal history of
science" in pursuit of a method for rational reconstruction
of scientific practice.
He developed a model for scientific
4. See (Elkana.1974), (Elkana).
Historiographic Framework
knowledge[5]
-31-
to support a level of interaction among
competing programmes which was consistent with his mechanism
of scientific progress, at the same time as it maintained a
rational core for his historiographic methodology.
According to this method, the "programme"[6]
embodied
in Scharoun's practice is represented as a set of
architectural principles organized according to three
categories
-
a body of knowledge, an image of practice, and
ideological factors - according to the role they play in his
practice.
- The image describes the sources of knowledge
allowed by a programme, the relations of precedence
among those sources, the metaphysic which relates
the abstract reality which the practitioner
manipulates to the concrete reality, the heuristic
which guides the practitioner's judgement of the
success of the programme, and the audience towards
which the practice is directed (including
sacred/secular status, and the level of consciousness upon which the audience is addressed).
- The ideology depicts the recognized social
pressures, the value placed upon the practice, the
norms to which its practitioners must adhere.
5. In particular he introduces the concepts "thick
description" and "metic reason"; see(Elkana., p46f, p122f)
6.
This spelling is chosen to distinguish it from a program,
in the sense of an "architectural program", which would
stipulate the contingent conditions and intentions
governing an architectural project.
-32-
Historiographic Framework
- The body comprises the methods, theories, solution
procedures, algorithms, and heuristics which, when
applied and interpreted within a particular
"scientific" metaphysic, are construed to test the
abstract reality and to project this test onto a
true reality. They structure and judge the course
and the success of the experimental, or projective,
endeavors.
3.2 Architectural Practice as a Research Programme
Following the method of thick description, the
distinction between external and internal pressures loses
significance.
It can now be recognized that such
distinctions promote one programme to the level of the
historiographic methodology used to represent and investigate
other programmes. Whereas political matters had been
designated as external to true architecture, and political
affiliation had been used[7]
to qualify a programme as
degenerating or progressive, depending on how it responded to
propositions with political connotations, affiliation can now
be identified as a property intrinsic to the programme. Its
presence as a demarcation criteria depended on a proposition
which, in the mechanism of thick description, resides in the
image of knowledge, as a proposition no more significant than
any other.
In fact, to have made such distinctions on a
historiographic level contradicts propositions present within
7. See page 50.
Architectural Practice as a Research Programme
-33-
in politically progressive modernist programmes of the
twenties. In order to maintain the ideal of "rational
reconstruction" the requirement of political isolation must
be removed.
two criteria:
As a side effect, the demarcation separates into
the ideology or politics presented by a
programme are subject to moral judgement; the historical
judgement refers to the structure of that presentation.
In order to adopt this framework into the historiography
of architecture, a number of modifications must be made.
In
particular, to represent circumstances in which the image of
practice may hold the practice to be a non-rational endeavor,
criteria of rationality must be shifted into the image; their
use left to the discretion of the particular programme. In
order to explain interaction and transformation under
circumstances in which the "hard core" of a dominant
programme may not support dialogue,
incommensurability[8]
the provisions for
must be extended, to accommodate it
within a given programme. Where, just as mismatches between
individuals' beliefs are acceptable, it would be legitimate
to allow inconsistency among the propositions corresponding
to a single individual's programme. It becomes possible to
8. (Elkana.,pll3f)
Architectural Practice as a Research Programme
-34-
represent the interaction between two ostensibly isolated
programmes through a mechanism for internal accommodation.
This need for this facility is particulary acute for the
period studied.
The twenties and early thirties had been a
time of conflict among numerous approaches to design. Whereas
alliances, such as the DWB, had furthered the cause of modern
designers, by 1933 they had lost their shared purpose, and
its significance as a forum diminished, as economically and
politically based rifts pushed divergent social ideals to the
surface. After 1933, as all such organizations were subsumed
by fascist institutions, no form of dissension was permitted.
Once coherence and inherence have been removed from the
realm of reconstruction to that of historical account, it is
still necessary to distinguish between interaction which is
significant to the reconstruction of a practice and that
which, although it may remain part of the account, would not
contribute to a description of a deliberate path. This
distinction may be made by determining if the influence,
criticism, or even interference, concerns the substance of a
programme or the participants.[9]
9. See (Elkana.1974, p.253),
Under substance, the
(Elkana, p.15).
Architectural Practice as a Research Programme
-35-
method must be prepared to acknowledge disagreements
throughout the realms of the competing programmes. Whereas
the nature of scientific practice allows Elkana to
concentrate on the body of knowledge, an account of
architectural practice must also recognize conflicts within
the realms of image and ideology.
In addition, if the programme is no longer to be
composed according to rules of consistency, the interaction
among propositions within a given programme must be made more
explicit.
This model for intra-programme competition must
provide a mechanism to trace the interaction between a
programme and nominally external factors.
According to the
basic method, once principles are located in individual
realms, the means available to describe transformations of a
programme include noting the appearance and disappearance of
propositions, and charting changes in the formulation, or the
meaning, of a proposition.
As the above discussion
indicates, it should be expected that a single programme
actually houses a number of partial, overlapping, programmes.
It should even be possible that they be contradictory. Yet,
as long as each can be identified in the intentions of the
designer, it claims a degree of control in realizing the
composite programme.
By extension, it becomes legitimate to
note correspondence and disjunction among propositions
-36-
Architectural Practice as a Research Programme
present in various realms.
By tracing the transfer or
projection of propositions among realms, and noting in the
precedece of propositions within realms, it is possible to
describe the effects of the "intra-programme" competition.
In this formulation, the changes - for example, in the body
of knowledge, as a consequence of ideological influence,
would be described as the appearance of anomalous techniques
or criteria within the body of knowledge, and as the
successive transformations of meaning, displacements, or
projections which the discrepancy provokes.
Once internal
distinctions are legitimate, it would be possible to identify
the mechanism of simultaneous progress and continuity as the
shifting and juggling of numerous, partial programmes on the
part of the practitioner. This would, for example, help to
identify those aspects of the modern programme - and ofScharoun's programme in particular, which made it susceptible
to, or even reinforced, changes in its context, those which
forced conflicts with competing programmes, and those which
insulated it from external interference.
Mechanism of Application
-37-
3.2.1 Mechanism of Application
To ensure that one does not introduce spurious
qualifications into the account by conventionally adopting
practices from the historiography of science, two further
questions must be resolved:
where does a programme reside,
and what are the central criteria applied to determine the
status, or the quality of a programme. Answers to these two
questions affect which phenomena will come under study, and
what sorts of relationships between the social and the formal
constitution of a programme will be subject to investigation.
To restate the first question, would a single building
correspond to a programme? Would an extended project
-
a
settlement, such as Pessac, or Siemensstadt, or the
Weissenhof exhibition - constitute a programme. Does a
polemic article, or a book - for example, Vers Une
Architecture or Eine Stunde Architektur - correspond to a
programme? Is one of these objects more essential to the
constitution of a programme than another.
What may be
claimed, when seeking a architect's programme, if they never
propounded any such thing. This question is especially acute
in Scharoun's case, where the intellectual ground rules of
the enquiry run contrary to those practiced within the
programme. Whereas many architects - Le Corbusier and Haering
-38-
Mechanism of Application
among them, undertook to formulate a set of principles, and
to apply them deliberately in their work, Scharoun was much
more discursive.[10]
The designation "programme" must correspond to an
identified set of principles, applied deliberately, over
time. It is particularly important to establish a stable,
independent quality for a programme.
An individual building
is too passive to meet this criteria: for the hard core of
the programme manifested by a single building to become
evident, it depends on the user or the critic to apply some
conception of use or analysis. The predilections of the
observer which the principles and associate them with realms.
No single object can indicate a response to alterations in
"objective" conditions.
On the basis of a combination of
repeated statements, evidenced in interaction with an
autonomous reality it is possible to begin to establish the
content and structure of a programme.
A programme must articulate its properties. It must
insist on its frames of reference. In the trivial case, this
may be established through explicit statement on the part of
10. See above, page 24.
-39-
Mechanism of Application
the designer.
Another means to do that is to observe how the
programme responds to problems for which it does not yet
contain the answers, or to judge changes which take place in
the explanations which it proposes, tactics it employs, and
solutions it suggests for the situation at hand.
Even the
design process for a building, is likely to be too restriceed
to support this. Unless the factors leading to transformations in the individual design are self-evident, the danger
exists that the observer will begin to apply their own
programme in order to interpret the change.
Only in the simplest programmes or the most protracted
projects will the process of clarification, which contributes
to the design, demonstrate the structure of a programme by
pointing out inconsistencies internal to the programme or
mismatches with the situation.
Part of the problem is that
the situation has, most likely, remained constant during the
the period of the shifted design.
In this sense, the single
building is more like one experiment, one published
paper.[11]
11. Unless the originator's image of knowledge places great
importance on reflection and on thought experiments, a
test cannot even be said to have occurred.
Mechanism of Application
-40-
A programme might, more likely, be found in a housing
estate design, in the body of work over a period of time, or
within a collective practice - a "school" or design
philosophy.
The works chosen as the basis for an account of
a programme need only establish a set of qualities with a
minimum of.interpretation. This could occur through
comparison- among the works,
or through comparison with works,
from other designers, under similar conditions. They must
demonstrate a correspondence between changes in the programme
content, coincident with transformations in the context.
With regard to the work of an individual architect, in order
to allow the mechanism discussed above, the constraints
placed on propositions should not be consistency or
coherence, but rather deliberateness and reasonableness.
Attempts to judge the status of a programme raise two
further questions.
The events of the early thirties
demonstrated that architectural practice does not require an
objective, shared context of principles and ideals. The base
of principles which are required for an architect to practice
are not of the same quality as the objective reality shared
by a school of scientific thought.
and Scharoun in particular,[12]
Architects in general,
demonstrate the conviction
12. In a letter to Anna Hoffmeyer:
"Tatsachen sind vereiste Gefuehle..."
Mechanism of Application
-41-
that "objective" reality is a consolidated form of
subjective, a priori principles, derived from personal
experience, which have been tested against a physical
reality, at best under inconsistent conditions and to varying
degrees.
Where each given programme may be reasonably
maintained in the face of any other individual reality,
"objective" criteria for judgement depend on political force
for their authority.[13]
Where "progressive" problem shifts
are defined socially,, they carry conviction for the
practitioner only, not for the historian.
Where significant
anomalies are designated according to social consensus, where
a programme may have been forgotten without ever having been
refuted, the acceptance of a programme is the concern of
account only, not of judgement. The incoherence which
manifests "external" influence imputes no degeneration.
is also unlikely either that "progressive" -
It
in the sense of
contending with a significant anomaly - will be sufficient to
identify advance, or that distinctions in integrity, made
according to rules of consistency, could identify
"degeneration", since boundaries and priorities are set by
13. Eg: Elkana's competing scientists have made a political
decision, when they confer, to accept a common set of
meanings. The National Socialists attempted to promote
architectural propositions to objective criteria by
excluding any competitors.
Mechanism of Application
-42-
subjective decision.
Under such circumstances, in order that the concept of
advance be available to qualify architectural programmes, the
concept of progressive and degenerative problem shift must be
adjusted.
The meta-principle "consistency",
which had been
applied to judge the quality of a programme, recedes. It
becomes a proposition of the same priority as any other
component of a programme. "Falsification" is no longer a
criteria of demarcation of programmes, but only a principle,
among others in the "image" of a programme, governing
validation of theories.
The extension to the formalism of
research programmes offers a means to contend with such
difficulties. According to this extension, it is legitimate
to trace the movement of propositions between realms, and to
qualify the degree of agreement of propositions among realms.
One might term these two qualities "thematic projection" and
"thematic correspondence", respectively.
"Advance" - without
the connotations of directness, corresponds to such a
transformation, when it is orchestrated to achieve some end.
The specification of that end is left to the programme.
Mechanism of Application
[14]
-43-
At the same time as this particular analytical
framework offers opportunities to contend with deficiencies
in existing accounts of, and in the methods of recounting,
Scharoun's practice and these times, it sets requirements for
the subsequent course of the investigation, No attempt will
be made to present a survey of Scharoun's entire practice
during this twelve year period.[15]
It is more appropriate
to present those aspects of his work which best indicate the
development of his programme from the common "avant-garde"
core, and which highlight the influences. Particular
attention will be paid to those aspects of Scharoun's
practice and of the context which demonstrate the need for a
"programmatic" model.
In this process, in order to identify the mechanism of
influence between programmes, restrictions placed on the
individual designer should be formulated as propositions
which constitute a competing programme.
Principles of
14. Any judgement of the integrity of a programme and
recognition of competitors may be limited according to
the range of audience which the programme claims. For
architecture, the audience can be qualified according to
whether they are concerned with generation, use, or
criticism of the work. Each audience will correspond to a
distinct authority.
15. See (Anderson.1985).
Mechanism of Application
-44-
consistency may be used to identify the correspondence or
conflict of propositions between programmes, and to judge the
extent of influence.
In particular instances, it will be
worthwhile to draw attention to those situations in which
influence can be circumscribed.
The degree to which
influence has been assimilated, that is the grade of evidence
-for principles in either the initial programme or the altered
programme to support the decision, demonstrates the degree to
which the influence had been concerned with substance of the
practice.
As a side effect of thick description, relationships
among propositions which come to light, can explain how
certain programmes were able to maintain a degree of autonomy
in the face of the fascist reorganization of the practice,
while other programmes were forced to shift contexts in order
to continue.
A comparison of the generic programmes "Neues
Bauen" and "Neue Sachlichkeit" demonstrates this. Each
proposed an abstract theory to explain the link between use
and form.
In the first case, this criteria to judge the
quality of form was independent of the particular culture. It
was continuously evolving, parallel to, yet independent of
Mechanism of Application
the culture.[16]
-45-
According to "Neue Sachlichkeit", this
ultimate validation criteria was to be found in the character
of the particular artifact, and in the culture itself. Thus
when the model of the culture turned out to be false - as was
demonstrated by the cultural shift following 1933 - there was
no recourse except to search for another culture which
provided a more favorable fit.
The thick description mechanism also makes it possible
to avoid overstating the completeness of fascist control over
architectural practice.
Since it is no longer necessary for
the propositions of the NS programme to correspond one-to-one
with those of the programme it supplanted, it is no longer an
objective deficiency[17]
for the fascist programme to have
taken control of institutions without a substantive social,
technical, and formal programme.
The absence of substance
may now be viewed more in the nature of fascist control. This
makes it possible to demonstrate the boundaries of that
control.
It would be expected, for example, that the respective
16. See Haering's discussion of the evolution of form in
(Haering.1968). See page 4.1.2.1
17. See (Teut.1967, p19),
(Miller-Lane.1968, p.185ff)
-46-
Mechanism of Application
realms would be susceptible to influence to varying degrees.
Whereas it is relatively easy to inject new propositions into
the body of a programme - the purpose of an experiment is to
refute theories, ideological propositions are more tenacious.
The course of Scharoun's practice bears this out.
3.2.2 Architectural References
In the case of Scharoun's programme during the thirties,
very few statements made by the architect may be used to set
forth the programme.
Knowledge of Scharoun's concerns can been built up only
from very sketchy indications, from contemporaries or from
correspondence, either as to the names of authors to whose
ideas he might have made references, and to contacts he was
able to maintain.
His personal library had been given to the
Berlin Academy of Arts shortly after his death in 1972,
without any record of the particular contents having been
made.
Only a superficial knowledge of his view of his
situation could be culled from records of correspondence out
of this time.
His correspondence during the years before
1945 did not survive to 1982.
It has been possible to locate
letters only through the recipients.[18]
Even in those
18. In particular O.Schlemmer, and L.Slapeta.
Architectural References
-47-
instances, the contents of such letters must be taken to
represent only a very guarded projection of his concerns, as
postal service was subject to surveillance.
One difficult aspect of this attempt to chart the
transformations within Scharoun's programmes is that the
manifestations during the various periods are difficult to
compare.
Contemporary accounts served to accommodate aspects
of the designs with the institutional programmes.
Whereas,
during the twenties, proponents of modern programmes depended
on periodicals and independent publications as a means to
distribute their arguments and to communicate examples of
their work, during the thirties, unorthodox designers were
restricted to carrying out unpretensious projects.
Publi-
cation was highly controlled, both through official means and
through the personal efforts of competitors who wished to
undermine modern programmes.[19]
In Scharoun's case his own
commentaries, which had been common in the twenties, ceased
in the thirties. The only presentation of his work within
Germany were articles by others, in which, with one
19. The foundation of the National Literature Chamber
predated that of the National Chamber of Arts. Unofficial
efforts took the form of individuals, such as Konrad Nonn
- editor of the Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung, who used
their influence to prevent the publication of work by any
modern designers.
-48-
Architectural References
exception,[20] his work was mentioned only in passing.
The silence during the thirties carried over into the
forties, and fifties.
Very few retrospective accounts by
witnesses of the time appeared.
Those which did appear
tended to be selective, interpreting only aspects of events
chosen to advance a particular image.
They performed the
same selective reconstruction with regard to the new
institutions.
Scharoun's only reference to work out of that
period[21]
designated the first version of the Moeller house
as a prototype of Neues Bauen design. This is typical of the
contradictions of the period. The absence of stylistic
correspondence would lead one, at first, to dismiss the
statement entirely. The correspondence does appear however
when one continues beyond the stylistic elements to examine
the spatial and formal organization of the design.
This
demonstrates that the only reliable basis to explicate the
programmes would be the buildings themselves.
20. The Schminke house was featured in the March 1934 issue
of Innen-Dekoration.
21. (AdK.Scharoun.22.VI.1950, T.U.B lecture)
Institutional References
-49-
3.2.3 Institutional References
Archival records do exist to document much of the design
work he carried out during this period. The various offices
of the Baupolizei maintained files of all completed projects.
Those documents which survived the war could be used to
augment Scharoun's office archives on file at the Academy of
Arts. Finally, sufficient documents were available from
institutions which had been concerned with the practice of
architecture during the thirties to sketch the institutional
programme.
Institutional References
-50-
3.3 Institutional Context
There is no shortage of accounts of the effects of the
the National Socialists' attempts to recreate art to serve
totalitarian ideals.[22]
They range from Behne's depiction
of the immediate effects of the events of the years 1933 - 45
as he strove to reintroduce the ideals and examples of
moderne art into the cultural vacuum of the late forties, to
Teut's and Wulf's documentary works which recount the
workings of National Socialist cultural institutions through
official documents.
The difficulty with these representations is that they
concentrate on the official activities of the totalitarian
institutions.
Even where they delve into the background of
such events, or furnish National Socialist documents which
convey the NS programme directly, they go no further than to
present a canonical image of National Socialist cultural
politics.
The effect has been to reinforce the same
monolithic image which National Socialist interests had
hoped, themselves, to perpetuate.
22. eg: Behne.1947, Brenner.1963, Miller-Lane.1968,
Taylor.1974, Teut.1967, and Wulf.1983.
-51-
Institutional Context
The argument has been[23]
that the institutional forces
were sufficiently powerful and effective, that non-conformist
work was visible only, as exceptions, to the extent that it
did not threaten the established course of cultural
developments. While it is true that the effect of
totalitarian control on the practice of architecture was
devastating, it cannot be true that those modern
practitioners who remained, whose work may no longer have
been published, could have vanished simply because they were
not institutionally supported. If that were true modern
architecture would never have been conceived in the first
place. It is also not sufficient to argue that manifestations
of modern principles were ignored, as they were taken to
represent insignificant perturbations.
Even in cases where
the converse to this problem has been explored, in that the
myth modern preeminence prior to 1933 has been
questioned,[24]
no effort has been made to explore the
implications of continued application of moderne programmes.
23. (Miller-Lane.1968, p84),
(Teut.1967, p66f, 119f).
24. Eg.
(Schaeche.1984) where he points out that the modern
programme was already defunct when the Bruening austerity
program went into effect, and thus the National Socialist
institutions were merely removing a degenerate programme
from the field.
-52-
Institutional Context
These presentations neglect the continued existence of
conservative institutions during the period of totalitarian
controlled cultural politics and they discount any continued
moderne practice throughout this period on the grounds that
it did not act to affect those institutions.
In order to develop a description of the cultural
context of the thirties in sufficient detail to support an
account of the influence on an individual practice, documents
were collected from those institutions which impinged on the
practice of architecture.[25]
Rather than concentrate on
the official statements, which the above authors have covered
with sufficient completeness and objectivity, I attended to
the preliminary versions, the minutes and the consulting
opinions which were never to have become part of official
policy.
These documents contributed to regulations which
25. Reichskammer der bildenden Kuenste (Landesleiter, Berlin,
and Praesident),
Preuszische Bau- und Finanzdirektion (in particular the
administration for development of the Domaene Dahlem),
Reichsstelle fuer Raumordnung,
Reichsfinanzministerium,
Reichsministerium fuer Volksaufklaerung und Propaganda,
Amt des Reichskunstwartes,
Reichsarbeitsministerium (Hauptabteilung IV (or S) Siedlungs- und Wohnungswesen, Reichs- und Landesplanung).
Institutional Context
-53-
shaped the context of the practice of architecture in order
to develop an account of the National Socialist programme
with which the individual architect was confronted.
[26]
During this process, the distinction between personal
and substantive concern was maintained as a means to
determine which instances of conflicts were to be
accommodated as manifestations of competing programmes.[27]
On the basis of this body of information it is possible
to develop a sense of the functioning of these institutions.
This image of the actual context in which Scharoun practiced
acts as a basis for an account of the course of that
practice, of the influences and the evolution.
26. "Einstweilige Massnahmen zur Ordnung des deutschen
Siedlungswesens",
"Gesetz ueber die Errichtung einer Reichskulturkammer"
(and subsequent executive regulations), "Anordnung ueber
den Schutz des Berufs und die Berufsausuebung der
Architekten" ("Architektengesetz"), "Gesetz ueber die
Zulaessigkeit befristeter Bausperren", "Verordnung ueber
die Baugestaltung", executive regulations pertaining to
the "Anzeigepflicht fuer Bauvorhaben", "Rahmengesetz
ueber die Neugestaltung deutscher Staedte", executive
regulations surrounding a "Bauverbot", and the
"Fuehrererlass ueber den sozialen Wohnungsbau".
27.
It is for this reason that conflicts with the Ministry of
Finance were a matter of concern, while conflicts with
the Gestapo were not.
Account
-54-
Chapter 4
Account
This chapter employs the research programme form to
represent Hans Scharoun's practice during the years 1933
1945.
-
The account demonstrates the use of this framework to
describe the interaction between an individual practitioner's
programme and a conflicting programme which constitutes the
context.
The relationships among the components and
structures of the respective programmes reveal the
possibility of innovation within this context.
In addition,
the articulated "programme" offers a structural explanation
for the anomaly which enabled Scharoun's unorthodox programme
to survive.
The presentation is divided into three sections. The
initial discussion concerns the individual components of
Scharoun's programme. They are illustrated based on examples
drawn form his work through 1945. The presentation shifts, to
locate the contact points between the National Socialist
programme (the context) and Scharoun's programme. Finally the
thesis will point out the ways the Scharoun managed to
continue to develop in spite of hindrances.
-55-
Account
4.1 Scharoun's Practice
4.1.1 Circumstances
Over this twelve year period Scharoun executed seventeen
single family houses, two apartment houses, and five housing
developments.
He planned four additional houses,
and sixteen
additional housing developments - of which twelve were
planned in conjunction with the "Deutsche Arbeitsfront". The
projects which Scharoun produced during this period are
contained in a list of works in appendix A.[1] .
Although his prominence was not what it might have been
under different circumstances, it seems clear from the
magnitude and nature of the work, and from Scharoun's sparse
references to the course of his practice,[2]
that despite
the circumstances, his projects offered opportunities to
apply and evaluate his architectural principles beyond
limitations set by National Socialist institutions.
1. See also (Anderson.1985)
2. See correspondence with L.Slapeta 19.111.34, 12.XI.35, and
22.V.38 (Anderson.1985).
Circumstances
-56-
Because membership in professional organizations was
controlled, there was no institutional support for an
interchange of ideas.
Architectural publications were closed
to him, and although he would have been legally eligible to
participate in competitions, they would not have been the
proper forum for him to him to apply his programme.[3]
Yet
it was still possible to maintain a level of personal
interaction which could support productive individual
relationships.
The interaction was so low-keyed that the
only consistent references to it come in correspondence after
the war, when survivors of that era relate the tenuous
relationships which they were able to sustain in such an
impoverished environment.[4]
One quantitative indication of the restrictions on his
work may be seen in a comparison of his income with the
standard for architects of standing. Whereas Scharoun
attested to an average income of c. 12,000 RM during these
years, much of that came from property owned, in Bremerhaven,
3. See (Anderson.1985, p.138ff): the competition for the
Rostock Civic Center.
4. In Scharoun's case such references appear in correspondence pertaining to post-war rehabilitation proceedings,
for which he had, in his capacity as director of urban
design for Berlin, submitted references. See also
(BDA.1983)
Circumstances
-57-
by Anna Scharoun. The level of income of architects favored
with state contracts indicates, by demonstrating the other
extreme, that Scharoun was earning only a modest income.
Speer, for example, received a fee in excess of 1.5 million
RM for the design work for the "Grosse Halle", while
architects under contract to the GBI were regularly receiving
fees of hundreds of thousands of marks.[5]
Independent of the quantitative limitations, Scharoun's
practice appears to have gone through several phases. After a
period of uncertainty, he was able to compose a programme
which isolated those stipulations inconsistent with the core
of his initial programme. As he continued to work, he was
able to integrate the two realms. Finally, in the last years
of work before construction was banned, he developedsufficient facility to continue to assimilate increasingly
strict stylistic restrictions into a programme which
conceived highly developed, unorthodox spatial organizations.
Also in these last years, the planning for post-war
reconstruction afforded an opportunity to investigate
settlement layouts which demonstrate some of the spatial
5. In (BA.R120.Nrl564, p.3 ff) the total of fees paid in
conjunction with the redesign of Berlin was approximately
14.5 million RM.
-58-
Circumstances
principles which he had discovered through the house designs.
4.1.2 Components
Scharoun's work during the twenties and thirties
demonstrates sufficient similarities to demonstrate that he
was able to continue the core of his initial programme into
the thirties. Although the socially motivated communal
designs are restricted to the watercolors he painted in the
forties, after architectural work was no longer available, he
continued to show his concern for the issues of urban
environments and housing in his designs for single family
houses and apartments. This is also born out by a comparison
of the components constituting the respective programmes.
They are presented here according to realm.
4.1.2.1 Ideology
Within the realm of ideals, Scharoun's programme shared
the central goals of all modern practitioners during the
twenties.[6]
He sought new built forms to answer the
demands which the contemporary material conditions were
placing on the inhabitants of modern cities. He hoped, in the
process, to circumvent the social limitations which dominated
6. See (Pehnt.1980, p77),
(Scharoun.1925)
Scharoun's programme: Ideology
-59-
the nineteenth century, and which hampered development of a
new urban culture.[7]
He sought to formulate the essential
purposes buildings were to serve in order to develop
appropriate plans and employ industrial innovations to
promote these ends.
In one area of his practice, he sought to provide the
spatial amenities which had been available only to the upper
classes for the middle and lower middle classes. The projects
and exhibition houses which employed prefabrication
technology were all intended to make it possible for families
with moderate incomes to own homes.
In another, he attempted
to develop forms to serve the new classes which had appeared
in the cities. His project at the Breslau Werkbund exhibition
and the speculative apartments, for Jakobowitz, in Berlin
represented experiments to produce economical dwelling plans
for unorthodox household compositions.He was concerned, in a
general sense, that these forms represent the individual
self-realization which was central to the social change
during the preceding decades.
7. Janofske points out the origins of this ideal in
Scharoun's involvement with expressionist architects and
the "Glaesernen Kette". By the thirties, it had assumed a
more pragmatic form. See (Scharoun.1932)
Scharoun's programme: Ideology
-60-
Alle Gemeinschaftsgedanken gipfeln, oder besser
gesagt, werden anschaulich durch Formung des
Erlebnisses zwischen Einzelwesen und Raum um uns.
Mitte und Hirn des Theaters[8]
ist der Schauspieler.
In ihm wie ueberhaupt in dem Koerper des Menschen
drueckt sich am ehesten die Verbindung von Raum und
flieszender Handlung aus, der Raum verbindet sich im
Menschen mit dem Zeitablauf.[9]
These immediate propositions were subordinate to two
principles which resided at the core of Scharoun's ideology.
His publications during the fifties[10]
indicate he had
adopted, from Haering, a model of cultural development,
within which culture did not depend on deliberate acts on the
part of the participants, but rather evolved according to its
own forces.[ll]
"The development of cultures exhibits a lawfulness
and directedness. Cultures cannot continue to be
accepted as the combinatorial results of the
ingenuity of man [....
They] must be recognized as
the individual phases of an evolutionary process,
which, although it is executed by man and is
necessary for man's development, remains, in
8. He using the developments in set design as the background
to his arguments.
9. (Scharoun.1925) See also (Scharoun.b.1957)
10. See (Scharoun.1957).
11. The first chapter of (Janofske.1982) presents a more
complete account of the origins and character of this
model. I am concerned here only with those aspects which
govern its relation to a competing programme.
Scharoun's programme: Ideology
-61-
conception and lawfulness, as removed from the power
and will of man as the paths of stars."
"Es gibt also in dem ablauf der kulturen einen
gesetmaeszigkeit und ein gerichtetsein auf ein
bestimtes zeil hin. Die kulturen koennen nicht weiter
hingenommen werden als das kombinatorische ergebnis
der erfindungskraft der menschen und der tausenderlei
einfluesse, dennen ihr tun und handeln unterworfen
ist, sie muessen erkannt werden als die einzeln
phasen eines entwicklungsvorganges, der von den
menschen zwar vollzogen wird und der auch zu ihrer
eigenen entwicklung erforderlich ist, dessen innere
idee und gesetzmaeszigkeit aber dem willen und der
macht der menschen ebenso entzogen ist wie der gang
der gestirne."[12]
"Man does not create culture. Superior methodical
formal events involve man, and offer people
possibilities for their own development. This
evolutionary process does not follow the will of man,
but rather the laws of higher consubstantiality."
"Eine kultur wird nicht von menschen geschaffen.
Hoeheres planhaftes formgeschehen bezieht menschen
ein, bietet menschen die moeglichkeiten zu eigener
entfaltung. Nicht nach dem willen der menschen
geschieht dieses werden, sondern nach den gesetzen
hoeherer wesenheiten. Die menschen sind hier nur
werkzeug. Eine hochtechnik ist ohne unseren willen,
ohne unser wissen um ihre ziele entstanden durch den
trieb einer rasse[13] zu organhaftem gestalten und
bauen, entstanden aus anonymen kraeften heraus. Eine
neue wissenschaft ist im entstehen durch eine innere
12.
(Haering.1934)
13. NB. This was to be understood alongside a prior
discussion of "ethos" in which he points out that, in the
evolutionary competition between classical and organic
forms "kaempfen ueberhaupt keine rassen, sondern
formwesen. Latinismus ist die partei der geometrischen
formwesen, organik [...]
is die partei des volkes. Volk
ist aber nicht identisch mit rasse. Volkhaftes ist
wesenform alles rassischen und jeder rasse.
Scharoun's programme: Ideology
-62-
umwaelzung aller erfahrungen, herbeigefuehrt durch
denselben trieb einer rasse zu den geheimnissen der
natur und des werdens, und ein neues bauen ist seit
jahrhunderten im werden, herbeigefuehrt durch
ebendenselben trieb einer rasse zu den gestaltschaffung der natur. Ueberall zeigen sich uns heute die
uralten spuren dieses triebes bis in vorgeschichtliche zeiten hinein. Aelteste tradition fuehrt
uns - nach einigen jahrtausenden des lernens und
vorbereitens - zu einer kultur der organik."[14]
This ideal, which depicted cultural development as a
teleological process, made it possible for Scharoun to relax
demands that his programme advance the culture, as this
advancement would continue independent of individual efforts.
It allowed him to concentrate on the design tasks which were
available to him.
In correspondence with L.Slapeta, at the
point when the two were arranging for Slapeta to come to
Berlin 'to work, Scharoun counseled to wait until he could
guarantee worthwhile work.[15]
It also made it possible to tolerate competing
programmes, as they would be contributing to an inevitable
14.
(Haering.1934)
15. "Die Sache liegt nunn so, wenn Sie Ihre Anfrage wirklich
im Ernst meinten, Sie sich doch mindestens mit wirklich
reizvollen Aufgaben beschaeftigen muessten. Zu projektieren gibt es natuerlich immer mehr als man schaffen
kann, ich hoffe sehr, dass darueberhinaus in kurzem das
Eine oder Andere von angeknupften Dingen faellig wird und
damit auch die wirklich reizvolle Arbeit da waere."
(Slapeta Archiv (HS.19.03.34))
-63-
Scharoun's programme: Ideology
process.
"Was ist aber das ergebnis hitlers im sinne des
erziehungswerkes?[16] Kann man diese ganze
katastrophe, die er herbeifuehrte, anders erklaeren
als durch eine bewusztseinstoerung und eine
massenpsychose,....
Ist aber eine solche unbegreifliche bewusztseinstoerung wirklich aufgetreten und tatsache
geworden, sp kann man eine begruendung hierfuer nur
in dem plane eines hoeheren gescehens suchen. Damit
sind die menschen niicht entschuldigt oder gar
gerechtfertigt - wenn auch entlastet - damit rueckt
man nur dem verstaendnis dieses geschens naeher.
Fragt man das erziehungswerk, welchen zweck dieses
bewusztseinstoerung gehabt haben kann, so duerfte man
zur antwort etwa erhalten, dasz aber diese krise des
technischen denkens in mitteleuropa zum ausbruch
kommen muszte, nicht weil dieses mitteleuropa
besonders autonom und autokratisch gewesen waere
[...]
sondern weil dieses mitteleuropa zu einem neuen
werkraum[17]
bestimmt ist, der eine klare abwendung
von dem autonomen menschen zur voraussetzung
hat."[18]
Where, in addition, this model proposed that the evolutionary
process was specific to the particular geographic domain of a
given culture, it could also be predicted that neither
Haering,
nor Scharoun would choose .emigrate
from Germany.
16. "Educational mechanism" refers to a global process of
cultural evolution.
17. The next evelutionary level: the organic.
18. (Haering.1968, p279, 10.VII.45) Note that this was
composed in retrospect.
Scharoun's programme: Ideology
-64-
Die gestalt der erde ist aus einer vielzahl
landschaftlicher individuen aufgebaut, denen
werkraumqualitaeten zukommen. Sie bilden die kosmisch
gegebenen gliederung fuer den strukturellen aufbau
der politischen gesellschaft. Die in staendig
bewegung befindlichen grenzen, die aus gruenden
machtpolitischen planungen ueber sie hingezogen
werden, haben diese urgliederung nie aufheben
loennen. [....]
Die werkraeume haben die funktion von
individuen in der gesamtheit der menschlichen
gemeinschaft. Dasz dieser ihr charakter in den
politischen strukturen keine rolle spielt, [...]
hat
seinen grund in der unwissenheit ueber dieses thema,
die den gegenwaertigen stand der arbeit an der
politischen gesellschaft kennzeichnet.[19]
Furthermore, this was not the product of a new development,
but rather the re-emergence of the "organic culture":
"Organic cultures start in the profane, in the
things of everyday life. They originate in the
people, in the ethos. They do not originate among the
Organic cultures cultivate
scholars or rulers. [...]
that which is essential in things and people, and
therefore attend to their multiplicity, finding their
unity in the same roots as nature."
"Geometrischen kulturen beginnen mit der errichtung
von tempeln, mit der pflege der formen der
offenbarung gottes, beginnen mit einer gottidee, die
eineidee hoechster macht ist. Organhafte kulturen
beginnen im profanen, in den dingen des taeglichen
lebens. Sie beginnen im volke und im volkhaften,[20]
sie beginnen nicht durch die wissenden und
herrschenden. [...]
Geometrische kulturen unterwerfen
alle dinge und menschen einem gesetz der erscheinung,
19. (Haering.1968, p.321)
20.
Haering was particular, in other works, to distinguish
his sense of "Volk" from the sense then in common usage.
He assigned the term "Masse" to this, latter, use. (see
(Haering.1947); (Joedicke.1965, p59))
-65-
Scharoun's programme: Ideology
sie gleichen sich aeuszerlich an, indem sie sie
innerlich abtoeten und zur sache machen. Organhafte
kulturen pflegen die wesenheit der dinge und der
menschen und also auch ihre mannigfaltigkeit und
finden ihre einheit in derselben wurzel wie die
natur.[21]
For Scharoun this yielded the proposition that organic
building
leads to a formation which allows a new
development the individual faculties of man. It
reveals these powers in the phenomena. When we speak,
for example of dwelling, we mean the dwelling act,
the dwelling process appropriate for a particular,
identifiable individual."
fuehrt zu einer Formgebung, welche eine neue
Entfaltung der individuellen Kraefte des Menschen
gestatet, und sie offenbart diese Kraefte im
'Vorgang'. Wenn wir zum beispiel Wohnung sagen,
meinen wir das Wohnen, den Wohnvorgang also, der
einem bestimmten und bestimmbaren Individuum zugeeignet ist. Das Prinzip der Individuation, das Wirken
des Individuums in ein Ganzes, kommt damit zu seinem
Recht."[22]
A corollary to this was that the meaning of architecture was
its "significance to life".[23]
During the twenties this is
readily visible, as attention to sizes, and as a tendency to
generate exterior forms which correspond to the configuration
21. (Haering.1934)
22. (Scharoun.b.1957, p.15)
23. "Architektur als Deutung des Lebens": see (Janofske.1982,
p2lff)
-66-
Scharoun's programme: Ideology
of interior spaces. This is particularly true for the designs
in which circulation was a central concern.
During the
thirties, the designs were much more figurative They were
intended to develop individual "worlds" which transported the
inhabitants experientially as well as spatially.
This realm was partitioned by two contradict-ions.
First,[24]
to bind the "Werkraum" to the particular
qualities of the domain sconcedes a certain degree of
influence to the participants in the process. Second, the
directed inevitability of the evolutionary process contradicts the indeterminate accommodative capacity required of
individual designs.[25]
4.1.2.2 Image
The most significant, though not immediately visible,
component of Scharoun's image of practice is the formulation
of authority.
The origin of this component may be traced to
the distinction Haering had made between architecture and
building:
24. See (Janofske.1982, p.17ff).
25. These disjunctions made it possible to continue to
advance his programme in the presence of an overbearing
competitor.
Scharoun's programme:
Image
-67-
Das gestaltschaffen im reich der organik ist
expressiv art, nicht aesthetisch, nicht im sinne
einer harmonisierung der aeuszeren erscheinung. Dem
begriff der schoenheit steht jener der ergriffenheit
gegenueber, der nicht die sinnliche welt anspricht,
sondern die geschehenswelt. Es geht um das geheimnis
der gestaltwerdung, die aufgabe ist nicht, die
geschoepfe einem gegebenen formgesetz zu unterwerfen.
Im raum der geometrischen strukturen entstand eine
architektur. In ihr diktiert das gesetz der masse,
der kubus. Die organstrukturen suchen den bau als
organ, sie bestimmen seine gestalt aus seiner
wesenheit, der bau untersteht keinem formgesetz, er
wird aus der idee seiner gestalt Es wird also
wichtig, nunmehr unter den werken der baukunst zu
unterscheiden solche der architektur und solche des
organhaften bauens, denn die polaren bezugspunkte
trennen sie im wesentlichen.[26]
They had adopted,
from Haering,
an ideological faith in
the
teleological development culture which avoided a dialectic
between modern culture and traditional forms. Haering also
proposed that the effect on the user or inhabitant was the
most significant quality of architecture.
This effect was
related to the activity which a place was to support.
"Das gestaltziel allen bauens ist: ein organ des
wohnens, des lebens, des arbeitens zu sein. Der bau
verdankt seine gestalt des funktion, die er als organ
des menschen zu erfuellen hat. Da stellte sich auch
das neue bauen als erste wichtige aufgabe, das wesen
des wohnens neu zu erfahren .... "[27]
26. (Haering.1968, p.314)
27.
(Haering.1951)
Scharoun's programme:
-68-
Image
The emphasis on activity caused them to concentrate
their design efforts on the relation between surface forms
and the inhabitants' impressions, and to discount
representation of construction or of abstract order.
As they
were willing to distinguish between visual order and the
architectural means employed to represent use, they were not
compelled to make that use submit to an aesthetic.
Finally
they worked towards design as a means to mythic composition
rather than as a means of problem resolution.
Scharoun's own
projects demonstrate this, as do those of his student
Slapeta, and those of Haering.
The organic modernism which Scharoun shared with
Haering, Rading, and Lauterbach deemphasized the visual
formal language and the representational, symbolic quality of
architecture in favor of an attention to use and typology.
"Neither the search for rhythm, nor efforts to
harmonize are essential to a building, rather solely
its service to life."
"Als die modernen auf dem wege zum wesentlichen des
bauens vorsteiszen, kamen auch sie [...]
auf die
rhythmisierung des baukoerpers. Aber auch hier fanden
sie noch nicht das wesentliche des bauens, wichtiger
als die rhythmisierung war schon das problem der
harmonisierung, d.i. das der maszbestimmung der
einzelteile auf grund ihrer lebenswichtigkeit am
ganzen bau. Das aber bedurfte einer neuen bestimmung
des baues, d.h. also seiner wesenhaftigkeit. Nicht
rhythmisierung noch harmonisierung sind wesenhaft am
bau, sondern einzig seine leistung fuer das leben.
Rhythmisierung und harmonisierung sind nur probleme
-69-
Scharoun's programme: Image
seiner gestaltung und abhaengig vom wesen des
baues."[28]
Das neue bauen zeigt baustoffe und konstruktionen in
ihrer wesenhaftigkeit, ohne sie aus anderen
formprinzipien heraus umzubilden, und es versucht,
das ausdruckproblem aus diesen gegebenheiten heraus
zu erschoepfen.[29]
"Die geometrie fordert eine ordnung im raume auf
grunde geometrischer gesetze. Eine organhafte kultur
fordert eine ordnung im raume zum zweck einer lebens
erfuelling. Das eine fuehrt zu dem begriff der
architektur, das andere ist der begriff des bauens
schlechthin und von uranfang an."[30]
This distinction resided at the core of "Neues Bauen". It
united a number of proponents of "Neues Bauen" in their
efforts to develop legitimate design criteria other than
aesthetic, and directed their search for formal sources and
principles outside of the realm of visual composition.
This
led to the introduction of the mechanism of types as a means
to judge and compare designs and programs and to the
introduction of the concept of "leistungsform" to express
their goal:
28. (Haering.5.1926)
29.
(Haering.1931)
30. (Haering.7.1934)
Scharoun's programme: Image
-70-
'Die leistungsform, ein technisches werk, verbirgt
die wesenheit, die ihr das thema gibt, wie der same
die bluete verbirgt, die puppe der schmetterling.
Doch ist es die wichtigste aufgabe des technischen
werkes, das gestaltwerk zu erschaffen, in dem diese
wesenheit erscheint."[31]
Consequent with the rejection of visual effect, the
sources for design motifs were instances of form which
corresponded with use.
natural,
There were also formal references to
landscape configurations,
as well as re-application
of conventional forms adapted from objects.
Whereas, in the
twenties the motifs may have been from the realm of steamship
design, the motifs in the thirties came from traditional
domestic houses but the mechanism was no different.
Die gestellte aufgaben ist klar: es geht darum, das
haus von innen her anzulegen, von den lebendigen
vorgaengen des wohnens auszugehen und auch im aufbau
nach diesem prinzip vorzugehen. Das auszen ist nicht
mehr von vornherein gegeben, es ergibt sich erst, wie
sich das auszen in allem organwerk erst ergibt. Das
auszen setzt dem organwerk wohl grenzen entgegen,
doch bestimmt es nicht sein form. Man zieht waende um
wohngruppen herum, man ordnet nicht wohngruppen in
rechtecke ein. Waende werden auf diese weise kaum
rechtwinklig zueinander stehen, und es wird auch kaum
ein rechtwinkliger baukoerper entstehen. Auch werden
die waende nicht unter allen umstaenden gerade sein.
Eine natuerliche ordnung wird sich einstellen, [...]
Doch haben wir kaum damit begonnen, den naechsten
schritt zu tun, der zur arbeit am gestaltwerk fuehrt.
31. (Haering.1968, p.306)
Scharoun's programme: Image
-71-
"Das gestaltwerk hat leitenden charakter. Die
raeume begreifen ihren dienenden auftrag. Sie
erhalten ihre gestalt vom wohnenden und von seinem
wohnen her, [...]
sie sind nicht von einer
technischen zweckmaeszigkeit her allein bestimmbar,
es spricht bei ihrer wahl eine beziehung zur
wesenheit des wohnenden mit."[32]
Yet scharoun did not restrict-his design work to this
principle.[33]
his inaugural addr-ess in Breslau ascribed an
independent authority to the audience:
"Das Bauschaffen ist das Ergebnis folgender Synthese:
Wille einer Zeit, Forderungen des Bauherrn und
Moeglichkeiten, die in der Natur des Baustoffes
liegen. Der Auftrag des Bauherrn setzt bewuszt das
Symbol fuer die unbewuszte Stroemung der Zeit. Und
aus der Spannung aller drei Faktoren zueinander
Zeitwille, Zweck, Material erwaechst jeweils Groesse
und Wert der Baukunst einer Zeit,
... "[34]
The image of audience also presented two distinct sources of
validation.
His earliest designs - those he did as a child,
were carried out against the wishes of his father, and his
training at the Technical College in Berlin was never
concluded, as he felt it was more worthwhile to accept work
with Paul Kruchen's office on the postwar reconstruction in
32. (Haering.1952)
33. See also (Janofske.1982, p33).
34. (Scharoun.1925)
Scharoun's programme: Image
-72-
East Prussia.
The design work he performed for Jakobowitz
from 1929-33 also demonstrates his willingness to develop a
project for a specific audience. The ground rules for the
design were set out by Jakobowitz according to profitability.
The Baupolizei had to approve the designs for conformance to
zoning and design guidelines. Scharoun was free to develop
apartment plans and facade designs--within those constraints.
The house built for one of Jakobowitz's engineers is a
further example of this. Schuldenfrey's stipulation
"Anything! Just no flat roof!"[35]
eventual exterior form of his house.
explains much about the
In the correspondence
which pertains to the projects of the thirties,
there is
a
strict split between the discussions with the clients and the
discussions of formal issues.
It is clear that there was to
have been one set of criteria for validation in conjunction
with clients, one for application with institutional
authorities, and another to use when generating designs.
Within his image of practice, Scharoun had been
concerned with hierarchical methods to develop and
communicate order in built environments as early as his
35. "Blosz kein flaches Dach!" Related (VIII.84), by
E. Harendza. He was employed in Scharoun's office to work
on the projects for Jakobowitz.
-73-
Scharoun's programme: Image
design for the Breslau bachelor flats for the Werkbund
exhibition in 1929.
Figure 4-l:
Breslau bachelors' dwellings
-1929: View.
Figure 4-2:
Breslau bachelors' dwellings: Plan.
His retrospective account of the project[36]
emphasizes the
relation between the apartment, the corridor and the communal
spaces, and in particular the mediating function of the
latter. Geometry serves as an ordering means only in the
immediate relationship between the dwelling and the corridor;
at the next level, the consistent topological relation
between apartments and the access path suffices. The external
form exhibits no consistent overriding geometry.
36. (Scharoun.1950, T.U.B. lecture).
Scharoun's programme: Image
-74-
Figure 4-3:
Breslau-Zimpel school -1928
Figure 4-4:
"Justizgebaeude" -1928
The competition design for the school in Breslau-Zimpel
indicates a yet stricter hierarchy in the symmetrical
arrangement of wings and symmetrical axes, while the entry
for the "justice building" in Berlin indicates similar uses
of hierarchical access and wings without the restriction to
symmetrical arrangements.
Although this form of hierarchical order is not as
severe as the symmetrical, classical hierarchy which
dominated monumental NS designs, it resembles that which was
developed in guidelines for new-town planning in the early
forties, and that which Reichow developed in his plans for
Wolfsburg and in his presentations of organic town
planning[37]
37.
(Reichow.1949)
-75-
Scharoun's programme: Image
Scharoun was among the advocates of Neues Bauen who
rejected industrial symbolism as an end in itself. Although
he did not refrain from using.industrial technology, he did
it for a pragmatic purpo-se rather than for effect.
Figure 4-5:
Hohenzollerndamm apartment
house.
Figure 4-6:
Kaiserdamm apartment hous e.
The apartment projects of the twenties demonstrate that he
was much more concerned with the effect of the surface
presented by the building as a setting for the expressive
quality of the individual formal elements than with the
technological associations of the individual components. T his
surface was the means to communicate the purpose of the
building and to mediate between the interior and exterior
realms.[38)
38.
(Scharoun.1925)
Scharoun's programme: Image
-76-
Es gilt weiter die einfachsten Grundlagen, nach
denen sich das Zellensystem einer Stadt aufbaut,
wieder aufzudecken: Raum und Kubische Form. Die
Begrenzung des Raumes ist die Wand. Notwendig ist es,
diese Wand wieder als den von aussen sichtbaren Teil
der Raeume fuehlbar zu machen, im Gegensatz zu den
bisher ueblichen Fassadenmauern, die den irgendwie
ausgenutzten Grundrissen vorgeklebt wurden. Aus den
Beziehungen und Spannungen, die so z.B. zwischen Raum
und Wand entstehen, muss das architektonische
Schaffen weitere Form gesetze ableiten. Oeffnungen
in der Wand betonen die Art der Benutzung des
hinterliegenden Raumes, werden Auge fuer Blickausfall
oder Lichteinfall. ...
There was no concern to represent its constructed quality.
Rather than be concerned to represent the innovative nature
of the technology which supported such forms, he was
concerned to express traditional values through the new
techniques:
Wer sich klar ist, dass >Neues Bauen< nicht
>Neues< Bauen ist, hat viel gewonnen.
Er weisz, das >neu< Bauen identisch mit >Bauen<
ueberhaupt, >Gesinnung< bedeutet im Goetheschen
Sinne, das heiszt Uebereinstimmung mit den geistigen
Tendenzen der Zeit.
Damit ist gesagt, dass es sich nicht um eine
Fassadenangelegenheit handelt, also etwas Losgeloestes, Abstraktes, fuer sich Bestehendes, sondern
um etwas nicht loszuloesendes Organisches, in die
Zeit Hineinwachsendes.[39]
39, Rading lecture 1929 for the Werkbund convention;
(Pfankuch.1970)
in
Scharoun's programme: Image
-77-
Where Scharoun sought innovation, it was an attempt to
accommodate traditional qualities under contemporary conditions. The apartment projects in Berlin and the bachelors'
housing in Breslau can be interpreted in this sense, as
attempts to accommodate emerging classes into a continuing
social structure.
Another shared proposition was the emphasis placed on
the experience of the environment in the hierarchy of
validation. Although the particular ends Scharoun sought
diverged from the NS desire to impress upon the citizens
their subordinate status, he was still sensitive to arguments
which emphasized the significance of impressions.
Ich glaube, es ist
Verlust des Gefuehles
den Niedergang wie in
Buehnenkunst mit sich
unschwer zu erkennen, dass der
fuer den allbeherrschenden Raum
der Architektur so auch in der
brachte.
Die Beeinfluszbarkeit des allgemeinen Empfindens
und des Gemuetzustandes aber durch Raum duerfte jeder
von Ihnen an sich selbst erkannt haben. Die
Empfindung des sich aendernden Raumes hat in gleicher
Weise wie der Ablauf der Zeit dem Menschen das
Gefuehl einer Gesetzlosigkeit eingegeben, die ihn in
Schrecken versetzen kann und deren er sich durch
Schaffen irgend einer Gesetzmaessigkeit zu erwehren
trachtet. Alle Gemeinschaftsgedanken gipfeln oder
besser gesagt, werden anschaulich durch Formung des
Erlebnisses zwischen Einzelwesen und Raum um uns. Die
bildende Kunst, Malerei, Plastik, ist durch das
Material einseitig an das Statische, an die
Scharoun's programme: Image
-78-
Wiedergabe eines Zustandes gebunden, waehrend die
Architektur gleich der absoluten Musik das Dynamische
herzustellen in der Lage ist.
Die Buehnendekoration des kommenden Schauspiels
wird nicht Ortscharakterisierung, sondern Eindruckserhoehung geben muessen und an der stelle der
Illusion und des Realismus muss wieder Idealismus und
das Symbol treten. Mitte und Hirn des Theaters ist
der Schauspieler.. In ihm wie ueberhaupt in dem
Koerper des Menschen drueckt sich am ehesten die
Verbindung von Raum, und fliessender Handlung vereint
aus, der Raum verbindet sich im Menschen mit dem
Zeitablauf.[40]
Scharoun's practice was characterized by conventional
methods.
He frequently drew from adjacent references to
develop designs. The development in Dahlem-Dorf employed a
roof form and massing which was certainly intended to
accommodate the design to the house form prevalent in the
neighborhood.
40. from Scharoun's Breslau innaugural lecture; in
(Pfankuch.1974).
-79-
Scharoun's programme: Image
Figure 4-7:
Dahlem-Dorf development
-1927: axonometric view.
Figure 4-8:
Kaiserdamm apartment block
-1929.
The projects for Jakobowitz combine a restrained visual
vocabulary with references drawn from the adjacent structures
to maintain the line of the roof and the rhythm of the
street. The plans were exercises in developing innovative
dwelling plans for conventional urban development configurations. This work by far outweighed the projects, such as
Siemensstadt, in which Scharoun exercised a free hand. There
is even one project in Berlin[41]
for which Scharoun and
Rading assumed responsibility to complete a project in
progress. In the process of completing it, they modified the
design of the rooftop so that it would provide amenities such
as Siemensstadt. The Schuldenfrey house is perhaps the
clearest example of this: The only stipulation the owner had
41. Although Harendza indicated Scharoun's carried the
project to completion, it is not included in the list of
works, as the documents do not indicate the extent of his
involvement.
Scharoun's programme: Image
-80-
made was that it not have a flat roof.[42]
By the late twenties work demonstrates a tendency away
from abstract orders to contingent orders. He began to
develop designs as juxtapositions of a number of partial
principles of order. The Stuttgart house design had already
been attacked as too unorthodox for including curved form in
an otherwise orthogonal geometry.
Figure 4-9:
Siemensstadt site plan.
Figure 4-10:
Weissenhof exhibition house.
The site plan for Siemensstadt employed a combination of row
arrangements and block-edge development, while the Stuttgart
house combined constructivist planes with the solid mass of
contained uses.
42. Recounted by Harendza.
-81-
Scharoun's programme: Image
The legitimation mechanism which he developed along
these lines, might be termed an "epic" method since it sought
to combine the available rather than to work towards an
ideal.[43]
Since the concept of cultural teleology precluded
a goal defined by an individual, it was sufficient to work to
create environments which "signified" the conditions of
dwelling -as they were, at that time.
4.1.2.3 Body of Knowledge
The body of knowledge may be recounted as a set of
principles, or theories. It also encompasses the methods
according to which they are employed.
The projection of his
ideal into principles could be summarized relative to
specific reminders he used:[44]
"Hauptsache Bewegung"
Expressed the concern for the effect of the place on the
user: the user was to be set into the state of mind conducive
to the respective activity.
43. See (Elkana).
44. Although not all sayings originate from this period, it
is reasonable to employ them to the extent they
correspond to the material.
-82-
Scharoun's programme: Body of Knowledge
"Hier eine kleine Welt, da eine kleine Welt"
Accounted for the elaboration of designs, in both plan
and section, into zones for particular activities. The
independent areas were then joined through a network of
paths, visual connections, and common reference surfaces or
views to create topological groupings which corresponded to
the program stipulations.
"Dem Vorgang entsprechend"
Architectural elements were chosen and deployed with
regard for their physical presence and their value for use
rather than for what they might abstractly represent. Worth
was seen in the specificity of form according to projections
of use.
Finally he relied upon principles of order beyond simple
classification which dominated twenties design. Resemblance
ordered arrangements by repetition, assemblage, and layering
of elements and according to shape, direction, and continuity
of line.
Under the category of methods, the techniques of
arrangement reappear as methods to organize elements in
layers, and along movement paths.
Hierarchical assemblage
Scharoun's programme: Body of Knowledge
-83-
grouped spaces at one size to form unified elements to be
treated at the next larger size. These methods required a
distinction between the part and the whole which the designer
could perceive, even though it could be superceded by other
means intended for the users' perception.
In order to ensure
that the desired order would be perceived, he used
purposefully reinforced lines and curves to emphasize
continuity and direction, and depended on the unification
which appears through scale shifts associated with
hierarchical assemblage.
"Nach auszen sichtbar"
Surfaces served as the major spatial elements. In
contrast to volumes, which are distinct, the surface is
identified with a zone which comprises all spaces affected by
the surface.
In contrast to grid and wall systems, surfaces
exist without regard to preestablished dimensions and
directions, and are not restricted to modules.
They were
employed according to two distinctions. Along one axis they
represented the use associated with the surface. On the
other, they were used to augment framed, grid systems, to
contain space when an open quality was not desired.
Scharoun's attention to surfaces as a means to
communicate purpose, and as a medium to contain use, had been
-84-
Scharoun's programme: Body of Knowledge
demonstrated during the twenties in his designs for apartment
blocks. The detailing and "intensification" of the surfaces
corresponds consistently with the respective contained use,
while the "constructed" quality of the surfaces, or their
relation to an overriding structural order consistently
remain unrevealed.
Figure 4-ll:
Siemensstadt development
Jungfernheideweg elevation.
Figure 4-12:
Siemensstadt view.
On interior surfaces, the use to be represented was not that
contained, but that associated with the surface. Rading's
houses of the mid-twenties had already applied color and
sculpture to surfaces to develop their capacity as signs.
Scharoun's apartment house designs of the twenties had
adopted this practice for interior and exterior surfaces. In
the Schminke house such intensified surfaces appear
frequently, to mark the place for a particular use, to
indicate the equivalence of particular places, or to indicate
continuity between two places.
-85-
Scharoun's programme: Body of Knowledge
Figure 4-13:
(RadingT Rading house:
Living room view.
Fiqure
Figure 4-15:
Schminke house: Entry hall
elevation
Figure 4-16:
Schminke house: Ground
level; linoleum plan
4-14:
(RadingT Rabe house:
Fireplace alcove.
The changes to the entrance facade of the Schminke house
reveal a similar interest.[45]
45. Reproduction courtesy of the Institut fuer Denkmalpflege,
Dresden.
'[-I -
-
I
-86-
Scharoun's programme: Body of Knowledge
-Figure 4-17:
Schminke house: Ground
level; reflected ceiling
plan.
Figure 4-19:
elevaSchminke house
tion; first version.
Figure 4-18:
Schminke house: Master
bedroom; reflected ceiling
plan.
Figure 4-20:
elevaSchminke house:
tion; second version.
The most significant change is the removal of the chimney
from the south facade. Whereas a chimney applied as relief to
the northwest elevation was retained to separate the entry
and access from the uses (the kitchen and the guest bedroom),
the chimney which had effected the dimensional and
qualitative surface transformation from the bathroom and
living room (at the left) to the master bedroom and solarium
appears in the final design only as a downspout which marks a
Scharoun's programme: Bodylof Knowledge
-87-
break in the parapet line. At the same time, the fenestration
has been collected so as to emphasize the continuity of use,
at the loss of a sense of the constructed nature of the
building.
He used movement to generate plans, to order distinct
use spaces according to the personal association which
develops from passing through a space. This depended on
layering and repetition of similar elements to establish
connections between places. Depending on the circumstances,
the elements may be walls, floors or columns.
Figure 4-21:
Schminke house: ground floor
plan.
Figure 4-22:
Breslau exhibition bachelor
dwellings: plan.
The plans of the Breslau exhibition and the Schminke house
indicate the selective use of walls to separate and to
contain uses, and of columns to designate continuity of
access or use. In the Schminke plan, in particular , the
entire structure is steel frame, yet the columns do not
appear where the closure is complete. Where they do appear,
Scharoun's programme: Body of Knowledge
-88-
the original grid does not signify order, rather the columns
are displaced as necessary to generate the desired use zones,
to imply continuous use through extending surfaces, and to
distinguish uses by breaking patterns.
The arrangement of levels in the Schminke house
demonstrates the use of translated surfaces which had
informed Scharoun's designs during the twenties. Each level
maintains the same quality of relation to the exterior. Along
the front edge, the house is entered, and windows indicate
the type of use; along the rear a balcony affords a limited
access in addition to the view provided by the windows. The
entry foyer and the stair allow uncomplicated access to the
upper floor.
This universal accessibility was an ideal
Scharoun had set out in 1925. It also shaped the design of
the Baensch, and Wenzeck houses.
-
/
.............
Figure 4-23:
Schwimmbad am Zoo -1927.
Figure 4-24:
"Dwelling Space": watercolor
-c.1942.
-89-
Scharoun's programme: Body of Knowledge
4.2 Institutional Programmes
4.2.1 Pre-1933 (Weimar) Institutions
In order to present the workings of the programme behind
the institutional facade erected by National Socialism. one
must recognize those branches of the government which were to
have continued to perform the designated tasks, even
1933.
after
The National Socialists were only able with
difficulty, if at all, to gain control over some of these
institutions. This means that, during the period of NS rule,
architects were competing with a programme which resembled
the programmes with which they had had to contend during the
twenties. Only in the early forties, as the regime had
preempted the practice of architecture by converting the
economy to military production, did the NS programme began to
approach the degree of dominance which the programme had
projected.
4.2.1.1 Bauordnung
The most stable of these institutions was the Department
of Buildings.[46]
It was not one centralized agency, but
46. The "Baupolizei" was the agency which executed the
building codes.
Institutional Programmes (Pre-1933)
-90-
rather represented local government. In 1918,[47]
as a step
in the continuing effort to consolidate the national
administration of the "Kaiserreich", the office of the
"Staatskommissar fuer das Wohnungswesen" was created to
takeover responsibility for housing matters from scattered
departments in other agencies.[48]
passage[49]
This coincided with the
of national housing laws, which created the
legal precedent for the unified construction codes, and
established the first substantive outline. Each state was to
issue its own version over the next decades.[50]
Two points about this building code are of particular
importance for this investigation.[51]
First, construction
and zoning regulations were viewed as legitimate compromises
of preeminent individual property rights.
This conformed
with precedents in construction law dating back to the first
47. 31.V.1918, (BA.R41, Index, p.VIII).
48. Das Ministerium des Innern, das Finanzministerium, das
Handelsministerium, das Landwirtschaftsministerium, and
das Ministerium des oeffentlichen Arbeiten.
49. 28.111.18.
50. The unified building code ("Einheitliche Bauordnung") for
Prussia was established 25.IV.1919. The building code in
effect in Berlin during the thirties was based upon it.
51. See (Buff.1971, pp.59-77).
-91-
Institutional Programmes (Pre-1933)
construction regulations in the early thirteenth
century.[52]
They were allowed on the grounds that the
right to personal property entailed a public responsibility.
According to this precedent, the construction permit was
"obligatory": it was to be approved unless the Baupolizei
could show why the project should be disallowed.
Furthermore
such objections were required to demonstrate a risk to the
public welfare or a compromise of the public interest.
Second, the 1918 formulation required, for the first time,
that the appearance of the project and its relation to the
surroundings be considered in the review process. Elevations,
at the scale 1:100 were added to the documents to be
submitted for approval, and the "unified street-scape" and
"local character" were to be considered.
Such regulatory efforts also present a general pattern:
there was never a self-consciousness of the effect of such
unification upon the culture.
The intent was simply to unify
the legal framework upon which construction regulation was
based, in order to control urban development and to prevent
indiscriminate construction from defacing urban environments
and cultural objects.
52. See (Buff.1971, p.15f).
Institutional Programmes (Pre-1933)
-92-
4.2.1.2 Bau- und Finanzministerium (Domaene Dahlem)
Contemporary with these regulatory efforts, the Ministry
of Construction and Finance[53]
was planning and executing
the subdivision and development of forestry lands. They were
continuing an effort which had begun, in 1901, when the lands
were released, by royal decree,[54]
siburb.
to develop a garden
In the course of administering this process they
demonstrated an attitude towards design guidelines which was
to continue through the thirties and forties.
By the
mid-twenties, planning guidelines were set out for the
composition of the community, urban design schemes were
developed, and a legal framework was established to allow
corporate and individual projects to be executed by
developers and owners at a range of scales.
These
regulations are significant to this research because the
streets Garystrasze, Miquelstrasze and Huenigerstrasze -along
which Scharoun executed the Schuldenfrey, Scharf, and Strauss
houses - lie within the boundaries. The internal
deliberations surrounding development in this neighborhood
reveals that the design controls were rooted in contractual
53. Bau- und Finanzminsterium (PBFM).
54.
(BLA.R42.Nr3884) the "Royal Commission for the Subdivision and development of the Domaene Dahlem" was
established 8.VII.1901.
-93-
Institutional Programmes (Pre-1933)
arrangements which dated back to the first years of the
twentieth century.[55]
The basis for these controls were urban designs drawn up
be independent architects, either under contract, or through
open competition.
Situations where the PBFM had failed to
uphold the guidelines had led to litigation,
in which the it
was charged with breach of contract. Thus although the powers
of design review present in the contract could not be used to
force a particular style,
they did impose a legal liability.
55. (BLA.R42.Nr3884) contained a memorandum from ll.VII.1932
discussing the distinction between the stipulations of
the building codes and the sales contracts as they had
been worded since 1901, with particular regard to the
responsibility assumed by the Prussian treasury:
"In these contracts there is no explicit
guarantee on the part of the Prussian Treasury to
protect and to maintain the character of the
neighborhood as that of a distinguished dwelling
colony. The question remains however, whether it
is not possible, on the basis of the
circumstances under which the sales contracts
were formulated and accepted, to conclude a
responsibility on the part of the Prussian
Treasury to do everything on its part to maintain
the character of the area, and to protect the
land owners, so far as it was in the power of the
Treasury, from decreases in property values."
-94-
Institutional Programmes (Pre-1933)
4.2.1.3 Professional Societies (BDA)
Parallel to the consolidation of regulatory institutions
and the development of precedents for urban development,
there had been, since the first decades of the twentieth
century, efforts by professional organizations, to win
official sanction for their practitioners.[56]
They sought
to control training for and entry into their profession, and
to stipulate a specific range of practices which would be
reserved for sanctioned members.
The primary participants in the process prior to 1933
were the office of the "Reichskunstwart" and the "Bund
Deutscher Architekten" (BDA). The earliest communication[57]
simply addressed the issue of competition between free lance
and state architects. It suggested that in order to protect
the private architect and to foster the development of an
architectural culture, municipal offices should refrain from
executing architectural commissions. They should contract
instead with private architects, or should award contracts on
56. See (Macleod.1971, Chapter 8), for an account of the
course of similar efforts in England during the
nineteenth century, and an indication of the significance
of the link between "style" and professionalism.
57. (BA.R32.Nr7, p.137) from 7.XI.1920 and (BA.R32.Nr7,
p.142) from 15.11.1921.
Institutional Programmes (Pre-1933)
-95-
the basis of competition.
The first correspondence which deals directly with the
"Architektenkammer"[58]
once again addressed the issue of
the architects' economic situation. Redslob took issue with
the position presented by a representative of the BDA,[59]
on exactly those points which intended to limit membership in
the chamber of architects on the basis of artistic ability,
and sought competitive advantage for its members.
The formulation which the "Reichskunstwart"
accepted for deliberation in 1927[60]
eventually
maintained the
members' isolation from both municipal and commercial
practice but eliminated the "moral and business
reputation"[61]
of the applicant from the qualities to
examine, leaving only "architectural[62]
ability".
and technical
It added to their rights:
58. (BA.R32/7 p.192f).
59. Cornelius Gurlitt, BDA president in 1927.
60. (BA.R32.Nrl43, p.195f) in a memorandum from 30 March
1927.
61. The "moralischer und geschaeftlicher Ruf" of the
applicant were retained through the October, 1925 version
in (BA.R39.Nrl9l, p.76f).
62. baukuenstlerisches Koennen.
Institutional Programmes (Pre-1933)
-96-
($13)
Members are authorized to draw permit documents
for third parties. They may submit these plans to,
and act as representative before, the responsible
authorities.
...
All of the elements necessary to develop the National
Chamber of Arts[63]
were present in these proposals. It
appears, ironically, that hesitation on the part of the
National Ministry of Economics, and the Ministry of the
Interior -
in the person of Redslob -
delayed its foundation.
The first proposals from the Kampfbund fuer deutsche
Kultur[64]
for an architects' and engineers' chamber
depended on the distinctions in social standing which had
been included by the BDA in its original formulation.
As a
consequence of their political intent, the original
stipulations made by the BDA regarding moral reputation have
been replaced by requirements regarding "political
trustworthyness" and ancestry.[65]
63. "Reichskammer der bildenden Kuenste" (RKBK).
64. KDK.
65. (BA.R561.Nr66) in letter 1 April 1933.
Institutional Programmes (Pre-1933)
-97-
4.2.2 National Socialist Institutions
The term National Socialist programme will be applied to
the principles and methods which constituted the institutionally recognized and supported practice of architecture
between 1933 and 1945. Even though, as discussed above, this
programme was not monolithic in composition and execution, it
conceived of and represented itself as a single entity. The
practitioners contended with the same central quality in all
instances., a quality which distinguishes all components
sufficiently from any other programmes as to argue that they
were bound together. It was a particular combination of
fascist ideology, whereby designs were to subordinate all
activities and aspects of life common will. It also
encompasses the repressive methods employed to restrict any
competing programmes which might attempt to demonstrate a
different ideology, and the methods developed to maintain the
mythology which developed to cover the gap between the claims
for the programme, the active reality, and the desires of the
population.
The contrast to the modernist programme was particularly
strong, since propositions which had operated as patent truth
in the twenties were dismissed as no longer applicable. The
propositions which replaced them were projections, through
-98-
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
the fascist image of practice, from the realm of ideology in
to the body of knowledge.
Within the programme, the absence of practical
experience caused an emphasis on procedural structure and an
absence of technical content. Discussion and controversy were
eliminated as means to reshape, rethink, and develop
programmes because the variation of perception which appeared
might have cast doubt on the monolithic myth. According to
statement and according to the substantive changes which the
NS programme introduced, it ought not have been at all
possible to continue to practice a moderne programme. Yet
this would only have applied if the monolithic myth agreed
with the real achievements.
The programme for bureaucratic consolidation led to the
establishment of the Reichskammer der bildenden Kuenste, the
Reichsstelle fuer Raumordnung, the Development office of the
Deutsche Arbeitsfront, and the office of the General
Bauinspektor for Berlin. This was in addition to existing
offices for planning and construction in the various
ministries, and the building inspectors' offices eventually
controlled by the Reichsarbeitsministerium.
As is particularly apparent in respect to building
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
-99-
codes, the amount of substantive coordination achieved in the
years up to 1945 in no way approached the image projected by
NS publications. The disjunction between the projection and
the reality extends beyond that example. A pattern of
institutional non-conformity, and the NS mechanism for
control through prescription rather than by prototype
resulted in a significant degree of latitude for
practitioners. The distinction between the projected image of
these institutions and their actual effectiveness is attested
to by the additional measures adopted and under consideration
by 1945, as the regime collapsed.
4.2.2.1 Bauordnung
It would be expected that the NS government would have
attempted to introduce stricter controls, and to realize its
cultural image, through the building codes. Yet when a new
unified building code appeared on 7 February 1938,[66]
presented changes neither in content, nor in regulatory
structure.[67)
In fact, in all individual building codes passed in
66. See page 90.
67. (Buff.1971, p77).
it
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
-100-
various German states through 1940, the terms applied to
qualify the fit of a project to its environment were roughly
consistent. Even after passage of the "regulations to prevent
disfigurement", the building codes never evolved to the point
where style was prescribed.
The building code for Neumuenster from 25 May 1932[68]
maintained:
($16 Roof, P2)
The roof slope and the type of roofing should match
that of the adjacent buildings and fit the character
of the street.
($24 External Appearance of Architectural
Structures)
(Pl.a) All exterior elevations are to be designed
and, finished, and maintained such that their
appearance is not intrusive and cannot act as to
offend a sound feeling for order. In particular,
roofing which, on the basis of color, material, or
pattern, acts so as to disturb the unified form, is
disallowed. ...
(Pl.c) Buildings which form an architectural whole
may not be partially remodeled or painted such that
the unified effect of the architectural work is
destroyed.
The only difference in the 21 June 1935 version is to the
effect that all visible surfaces are to be kept in good
68. (GSA.R191.nr3676).
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
condition.
The building code for East Prussia[69]
-101-
contained
similar stipulations:
POLIZEI VERORDNUNG UEBER DAS BAUEN AUF DEM LANDE
DER PROVINZ OSTPREUSEN
VON 1. DEZEMBER 1932
$24 Aeussere Gestaltung der baulichen Anlagen
1. Das aeussere der baulichen Anlagen ($1) muss in
bezug auf Bauart, Bauform, Baustoff und Farbe so
beschaffen sein, dass es die einheitliche Gestaltung
des Straszenbildes nicht stoert; insbesondere sind
Eindeckung, die nach Farbe, Musterung und Stoff die
einheitliche Gestaltung des Straszenbildes stoeren,
nicht zulaessig.
2. Bei der Errichtung baulicher Anlagen ist auf
den Schutz der Bau- und Naturdenkmaeler gegen
Verunstaltung und auf die heimische Bauweise
Ruecksicht zu nehmen.
3. Die von Straszen, Plaetzen oder anderen
oeffentlichen Verkehrsflaechen, insbesondere Wasserlaeufen, Eisenbahnen, aus sichtbaren aeusseren
Umfassungswaende sind in dauerend gutem Zustande zu
erhalten.
4.2.2.2 Bau- und Finanzministerium (Domaene Dahlem)
Indications of a contractual agreement could only be
found among archival records in the case of the Strauss
69. (GSA.R87.Nr2730).
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Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
house.[70]
Based on comparison with contracts for other
properties,[71]
the Strauss case seems not to have been in
any way out of the ordinary. The sales contract stipulated
that
($6)
The buyer must, before 1.January.1938......, erect a
dwelling of at least ......
square meters upon the
property. A penalty of ..... RM will be assessed for
each year construction is delayed.
Drawings for the dwelling design for the initial
construction upon the property are to be submitted,
prior to commencement of construction, to the seller
for approval. Elevation drawings are to be submitted
in duplicate. Single copies of plans and a site plan
are to be submitted.
Should the buyer commence construction prior to
approval of the elevation drawings, or should the
construction fail to follow the approved drawings, a
penalty of
....
RM -
in words:
....
Reichsmark -
will
be assessed.
70, The Schuldenfrey property may have been purchased before
the guidelines were in effect, and the Scharf property
had long been family property.
71,. (BLA.R42.Nr3886) contains a draft of a contract for
property on the same block as the Strauss house, to have
been sold at approximately the same time as the Strauss
property was purchased (16.1.1936 according to
(GSA.R151.Nrl0758)).
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
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4.2.2.3 Professional Societies (RKBk)
On the example of the "Reichskammer der bildenden
Kuenste" (RKbK), the archival documents indicate that the
most radical aspects of the programme which had been carried
over from BDA proposals from the twenties were the object of
objections from various sources on the grounds that they
would damage the economy and the livelyhood of too many who
were involved in the construction industries, if they
excluded practitioners whose activities might have left them
open to conflicts of interest, and if the entry requirements
were interpreted rigorously on the matter of technical
qualifications.
This conflict within the image of practice
was eventually resolved in favor of those who sought to
maintain the middle class base.
The monopoly on the right to
submit plans was eventually abolished, and the technical
entrance requirements were eventually lifted. Attempts to
establish internal distinctions, to be used in recommendations, or to establish membership on review boards, was
also to no avail, since the RKBK never succeeded to become
the authority to decide recommendations for such positions.
The development of the RKBK demonstrates a correspondence of between the respective images of practice maintained
by avant-garde architects and that promoted by reactionary
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
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designers.
The mechanism was adopted from proposals made
during the twenties, even if the principles which it was to
enforce had changed.
The racial and political stipulations were the
consequence of projections from ideology. With the passage of
the Nuernberg laws, applicants were required to prove their
ancestry, and in the late thirties and early forties, as the
domestic conditions became more severe, the secret police
required that all members be reviewed for evidence of
political disloyalty.[72]
4.2.2.4 Massnahmen fuer Siedlungswesen
The national regulations for housing planning grew out
of proposals under consideration during the twenties. The
BDA, the RAM, and the PBFM were all involved in the
deliberations. The National Socialists claimed responsibility
for the version which was finally passed, yet that version
maintained only the minimum of controls. It was more a legal
framework to allow development to be coordinated, to lend
authority to master plans, and to create sources of funding
72. It was under these circumstances that Ferdinand Kramer,
for example, was forbidden to practice. See (DWB.1982,
p.217).
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Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
for development. The substantive regulations were deferred
until a unified design code could be developed.
The minutes of a conversation on 16.XI.1942 indicate the
direction in which National Socialist institutions were
evolving.
With regard to the "3. Erlass ueber den deutschen
Wohnungsbau (23.XI.1942)" Popitz concluded that, once- the
government agency responsible to execute the national housing
program was exempted from the building codes, the effect
would be to circumvent the "Bauordnung"
"Baupolizei".
and to abolish the
The effect would have been to nationalize the
housing industry and to grant the "Reichswohnungskommissar"
complete authority in the planning and design fields.[73]
73.
(GSA.R151/n3693)
Von dem sachlichen standpunkt koennte man die
schweren Bedenken, die der Vertreter des
Reichsarbeitsministerium ueber die Auseinanderreiszung der Wirtschaftsplanung auf der eine
Seite, Bebauungsplaene- und Fluchtlinienfestsetzung und Bauordnungsplaene auf der anderen Seite
haette, nur teilen, ebenso wie auch die
Auffassung, dasz die Baupolizei praktisch mehr
oder weniger erledigt waere, da nach dem Kriege
in der Hauptsache fuer die Baupolizei nur
gewerbliche Bauten uebrig blieben.
[...]
Es
handelt sich um die Baugenehmigung, Rohbau- und
Gebrauchsabnahme; damit wuerde jede staatliche
Kontrolle nicht allein in der Baupolizei als
Sicherheitspolizei, sondern auch als VerkehrsGesundheits und Verunstaltungspolizei entfallen
[....]
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Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
4.2.2.5 Verordnung ueber Baugestaltung
When they were finally ratified on the 10. October
1936,[74]
the "design regulations" did not contain any more
stringent stipulations than had been present in building
codes during the twenties. There was no mechanism to exert
control over architectural styles.
Those passages which
would have characterized architectural quality in greater
detail, were stricken when it became evident that such
distinctions could not be made within the conventions of
jurisprudence, as they were based in subjective
74. (RGBl. I p.938)
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
perception.[75] [76]
-107-
Although "aesthetic demands"
75. (BA.R41(rep3l8)/n76) records the deliberations which
contributed to the executed version. It also contains
the Buege's ruling which details the measures to be taken
by the various local authorities to uphold the initial
regulation. The more specific wording of this decree
indicates a response to Speer's (6.VIII.36) doubts as to
the suitability of the "Baupolizei" to execute the
regulation. He had suggested that they be assisted by
professional advisory panels. It was indicated that the
RKbK should appoint them. In particular, he recommended
that the regulations include powers to "replace
unsuitable inspectors ('Sachbearbeiter') with suitable
personnel."
76.
(17.XII.1936)
Buege's ruling was more specific as to the goal and the
objects of the regulation:
"Die gestellten Anforderungen sollen in erster Reihe den
Zweck haben, ein harmonisches, von Gemeinschaftsgeist un
fachlichem Koennen zuegendes Gesamtbild zu erreichen und
zue Hebung der Baukultur beizutragen. ...
Die "besonderen Anforderungen", die an die baulichen
Anlegen im Wege Ortsatzung oder Baupolizei-verordnung
gestellt werden duerfen, sollen einerseits den zustaendigen Stellen die Handhabe bieten, die bauliche
Gestaltung nach ihrem Willen zu fuehren, andererseits den
Bauherren und Architekten den architektonischen Rahmen
geben, in den sie sich mit ihren Bauvorhaben von
vornherein einzupassen haben. ...
Fuer die Gestaltung des Baukoerpers werden u.a.
Vorschriften ueber die Einhaltung einer bestimmten
Gebaeudehoehe (Traufhoehe, Firsthoehe) oder Geschoszzahl,
in Sonderfaellen auch Gebaeudetiefe, zweckmaeszig sein.
Von den von auszen sichtbaren Bauteilen ist das Dach von
bestimmenden Einflusz. Um Einheitlichkeit zu erzielen,
koennen Dachform, Dachneigung, Werkstoff und Farbton fuer
die Dacheindeckung festgelegt werden,....
Fuer Auszenwaende kann vor allem die Bestimmung des
Werkstoffes und seiner Farbe in Frage kommen, bei
Putzbauten auch die Bestimmung der Putzart.....
Bodenstaendige Bauweisen sind tunlichst zu foerdern.
Neuzeitliche Baustoffe und Bauweisen sollen jedoch nur
soweit ausgeschlossen werden, als sie die Eigenart oder
beabsichtigte Gestaltung des Orts-, und Straszen- oder
Landschaftsbildes stoeren wuerden."
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Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
("schoenheitliche Anforderungen") would have furnished a
better means to project ideological stipulations into the
material realm,[77]
they were rejected in favor of "Decorous
design principles" ("anstaendige Baugesinnung") as the
criteria distinguish architectural quality,[78]
in order to
ensure uniformity.
The rulings Buege issued to execute the regulation may
well have been the most effective manifestation of the
National Socialist programme. Although it was not possible to
trace their influence in detail, they did contribute to the
design standards applied to Scharoun's design for the Scharf
house by the "Bau- und Finanzministerium".[79]
On the other
hand, even though Buege's directive emphasized the mandatory
status of the regulations, the phrasing of the statute
conformed to the standard for an "obligatory" permit[80]
77.
(ibid., Hiecke(3.VII.35))
78.
(op.cit., Popitz(2.V.36))
79. See (Anderson.1985, p.476).
80. See page 91.
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
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4.2.2.6 Neugestaltung
The laws which established the office of
"Generalbauinspektor" for Berlin were the first concrete step
towards what would have become the standard for architectural
practice in Germany. Rather than attempting to legislate the
standards, a single practitioner was given the responsibility, the authority, and the funding to conceive and
execute a unified plan for Berlin. Although the immediate
scope of the first stages of the plan did not go beyond
monumental proposals to rebuild the institutional infrastructure in Berlin, the next stages would have encompassed the
industrial and residential development of the city. Even in
the limited form of this initial implementation, by 1937[81]
the BP approval process required that the GBI review the
project before they could grant the building permit.
Although this stipulation was frequently ignored, and
although the GBI disapprove only projects within the extent
of its existing planning, and then only in order to stop
construction which would interfere with later development the
potential was there to employ the regulation as an absolute
means to execute centralized planning.
81. 30. January 1937 (RGBl. I p.103)
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
-110-
The regulation's purpose turns out to have been to
provide a legal framework to formalize powers of eminent
domain needed in order to execute any unified urban design
plans.[82]
Their intent was to avoid inflated claims for
compensation when land was eventually taken under eminent
domain.
Furthermore, the regulations were executed only,
under Speer's control, in Berlin.[86]
--
4.2.2.7 Anzeigepflicht
On a national level, all plans for development or
construction above a specific volume were to be reported to,
and approved by, the Reichsarbeitsministerium.
This review
process was implemented on the basis of executive orders
82. Documents from the Reichs Arbeitsministerium, which
recount the deliberations over the content of the
regulation[83]
and efforts by the RAM to mollify the
director of the "Reichsstelle fuer Raumordnung" with
resoect to fears that the new regulations would
compromise his authority,[84]
indicate that national
planning policy was not perceived to overlap with urban
design, and that the law was, in any event, "primarily an
eminent domain law for urban design". In memos[85]
which
discuss execution of the regulations, discussion is
confined to eminent domain and its implications.
83.
(GSA.R41.Nr591, p2f) from 26.VI.1937.
84.
(GSA.R151.Nrl357, p.273f) from 9.IX.37.
85. (GSA.R151.Nrl357, p.333f) from 31.XII.1937, and
(GSA.R151.Nrl357, p.357f) from 3.111.38.
86. (Buff.1971, p84)
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
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(5.VII.34 and 23.X.35) pertaining to the "einstweilige
Massnahmen zur Ordnung des deutschen Siedlungswesens"
(3.VII.34).
The regulations took effect on 1. December 1936.
Within Berlin, all construction plans were subject to review,
regardless of volume. This process could have become a
mechanism to implement a totalitarian planning and design
programme. When taken together with the degree to which the
government was becoming directly responsible for design and
planning[87]
they could have contributed to the "total"
architecture. Yet, the conflicts between the various
agencies, and the limited focus, were sufficient to forestall
such events.
Records from this review process indicate that attention
was reserved for regional planning issues. Works by Scharoun
and by Taut & Hoffmann appear in either overviews of regional
development[88]
or individual permit applications[89]
87. By 1943 the GBI employed hundreds of designers. The plans
to rebuild the Berlin envisioned employing 208 designers
of the 278 who would be available.(GSA.PB/R107.n70) By
1938, the government, including the military, was
responsible for eighty percent of construction in
Germany. The construction restrictions which began in
1939 culminated, in 1943, with a complete ban of all
non-military construction. (GSA.r3617)
88. (BA.R41.Nrl63.Hl) under the GWG.
89. (BA.R41.n4341)
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Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
4.2.2.8 Neubauverbot
The authority the terminate of forbid construction,
which appeared as the progress of the war drained the German
economy, played itself out in a fashion very similar to that
of centralized approval of projects according regional
planning guidelines. Although it could have been used
selectively, to enforce qualitative controls, both the intent
and the fact of the execution indicate that it was employed
to control resource allocation without regard to qualitative
distinctions. The concern was to trade off the condition of
the building industry with the severe shortage of materials.
4.2.2.9 Technical Standards
Another product of the totalitarian projection into the
image of practice were the programs to develop, distribute,
and enforce design and construction standards.
the body of
technical information available to the profession was, in a
certain sense, one of the few areas of innovation inn the
period 33-45. Numerous articles discussed proposed or newly
adopted standards for design specifications, and agencies
issued regulations to enforce the application of these
standards.
The professional journals contributed to this
effort by acting as the forum for discussion of such
standards, and many members of the profession sought refuge
Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
-113-
here as one haven from political pressures. One example of
this were the "Bauwelt Tafeln" published 1935 in
Wasmuth's Monatshefte.
They were a rudimentary graphic
standards, based on the measure of people.
In the 1938
Wasmuth's the "Tables" were expanded to constitute a true
Graphic Standards. In 1939, building authorities published,
in Wasmuth's, specifications governing the execution of all
construction details This trend was by no means new to the
fascist programme. Already in the 20s the PBFA had
continuously conducted, and sought to disseminate the results
of, research into the technical or standardizable aspects of
the practice.
At the same time, the potential for total control was
evident first in the late thirties and early forties, when
work such as Neufert's for the RAM, contributing to the
planning for post-war reconstruction, was established as an
absolute standard for war-time apartment dwellings. He
produced designs in 1943[90]
to be used during the war as
standard typed designs for apartment house construction. The
Reichsarbeitsminister approved the design in a generic form.
This approval was extended to the Baupolizei offices
90. (GSA.R151.Nr3638).
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Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
throughout the country.
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Institutional Programmes (National Socialist)
4.3 Commentary
4.3.1 National Socialist Presence
The documents reveal three phenomena behind the National
Socialist institutions.
First, they demonstrated the quality
of a continuous programme, in that they were based in
conservative or even reactionary institutions carried over
from the twenties. On another level, the non-"elastic"
quality of a programme is demonstrated where individual
disagreements, competition for personal power and structural
conflicts with the NS institutions rendered them unable to
execute the "total reforms" which they claimed. Finally, the
development of the NS institutions corresponded to the course
expected for a "relativistic" programme:[91]
the true nature
of the NS programme was only beginning to be realized by
1945, as the government began to assume exclusive
responsibility for architectural planning and design, and as
projections were made to consolidate such institutional
precedents in post-war Germany.
The NS programme presented a projection of a
91. The physical meaning is intended for both "elastic" and
"relativistic" here. In other words, change propagates at
a finite rate. As it propagates it is, itself,
transformed.
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National Socialist Presence
totalitarian ideology onto an image of practice which had
been inherited from the avant-garde programmes of the
twenties.
Certain principles, such as the use of
architecture to support social reorganization, were
eliminated, while others, such as using architecture as a
means to bind the individual into the society, were retained.
This image was adapted to accommodate industrial, settlement,
and monumental practices.[92]
Conservative tradition was retained as the predominant
authority, to the extent that it did not conflict with the
technical requirements of monopolistic industrial development.
The disruption of the moderne programme, when viewed as
a conflict with the NS programme, appears not as the
consequence of outside interference, but as the manifestation
of the emergence and consequent domination of one of the two
contradictory principles whose interaction had influenced the
course of the various moderne programmes during the twenties.
On the one hand there had been pressure, within the practice,
to change design, to make it conform to the pressures upon
92. See (Miller-Lane.1968, pl85ff).
National Socialist Presence
-117-
the market and society at large in the direction of
consolidation, and monopolization and to elevate rational
measures of efficiency as the dominant "objective" criteria.
On the other hand were the social forces which had, over the
preceding decades, worked to liberalize social orders, and to
carry those changes into the physical environment. The
pressures became ever more acute in the early thirties as the
coincident effects of the demographic transformation, from a
rural to an urban society, and of the world wide economic
crisis began to undermine the stability of the bourgeois base
of German society, and thereby threatened the privileged
upper class which controlled the German economy.
Where the National Socialist programme projected the
principle of consolidation from the body into the image of
practice, it did not constitute exertion of an external force
upon the moderne programme, but rather resolution - under the
guidance of ideology- of an contradiction within the modern
programme prior to 1933.
An adjustment which the moderne
programme had demanded within the body of knowledge was
executed on a larger order, to encompass the entire
programme.
The final form of disruption was the displacement of the
rational myth by the two myths which supported the NS
National Socialist Presence
-118-
programme: a totalitarian myth, and a natural myth. In the
first instance a mythological mechanism was used to support
arguments for the necessary presence of a fascist authority
to arbitrate in conflicts. In the second, symbolic links to
traditional qualities of culture were celebrated,
at the same
time as the substantive social and economic reform was
directed to annihilating- that culture.
The central criteria in the NS programme was to choose
or create environments in which the individual was
represented only in relation to central authority, to word
their judgement as if
the good of the people had been the
basis for judgement, while implementing programmes which
benefited a very limited class (the wealthy and the
politically privileged).
Any other criteria were
illegitimate. They were determined to be detrimental to the
good of the people, because while they undermined the
authority of the state.
The government purveyed a image of
domestic serenity and justice, widespread affluence, and
economic progress.
Behind this facade, the government and
armaments industry pushed the economy towards war, and the
society was held intact more by the threat of expulsion and
destruction of any who would dare to openly differ than by
common ideals.
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National Socialist Presence
In order for this mechanism to function, at the outset,
the repression had to remain "discrete". The populace had to
be led to believe that cooperation and conformity were in
their interests. This meant that where there was any
divergence between the actual common good and the "common
good" as projected by the NS regime, details were better off
unsaid. Broad generalizations supplanted substance in
regulations. A program would be implemented only by
installing an agency, as direct authority to execute the
changes.
NS image
The projection into the NS image of practice took the
form of the method "political coordination".
The stated
purpose was to ensure that a consistent and approved
programme be applied by all practitioners, and that
duplication and waste be avoided.
That they never, in
architecture, succeeded beyond establishing the institutional
framework to carry this out, did not stop it from being
effective as a means to undermine the moderne programme of
the twenties, as that depended on a similar centralized
authority in order to implement its changes.
During the years following the National Socialist
takeover, the opponents of an international modernism removed
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National Socialist Presence
competitors from the field of practice. The highly visible
institutions which they established, purportedly to this end,
figured, more in appearance than in substance in the eclipse
of the modern.
The essential mechanism used by the government to
execute changes was- "political coordination". [93]
Throughout
the society this meant that, over the course of 1933 - 1934,
all institutions were transformed,
incorporated
into a larger
body, which seized the authority over the reconstituted
organization
-
usually through the power to name executive
boards, or they were dissolved. The effect was to place
forums for all public and semi-public social interaction
under the control of the party.[94]
In this respect, the
situation for the practice of architecture simply followed
the general pattern[95]
In industry the institutional reorganization happened
very quickly.
On 2 May 1933 the trade unions were dissolved.
They were replaced with a governmentally controlled body,
93. "Gleichschaltung"
94. (Allen.1973) portrays the effects such a transformation
had on life in a small German town.
95. See (Teut.1967) and (Miller-Lane.1968)
National Socialist Presence
-121-
their leaders were imprisoned, and their property was
confiscated. The housing industry was left a certain amount
of freedom, until 1935, when the German Labor Front[96]
began to reconstitute the incorporated housing societies as
municipally staffed and controlled housing societies. By the
early forties,. it was envisioned that as single centralized
housing authority would assume responsibility for the entire
national housing program.
All architectural organizations were incorporated into
the RKBK.
Although this was presented as the mechanism to
achieve central control, in fact once the controversy
surrounding architectural styles lost its value as a source
of material to substantiate the "totalitarian" myth, all
practitioners were taken into the RKBK ranks. This was done
in order to prevent any unauthorized interaction than to
control the members directly. The repression which was
inflicted upon fields of cultural endeavor such as writing,
painting or sculpture never visited the practice of
architecture with such vengence. Whereas the symbolic force
of a work of art was such that NS policy sought not only to
forbid artists from practice, but also to destroy their
96. Die Deutsche Arbeits Front (DAF).
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National Socialist Presence
works, and whereas the conviction communicated by writing was
so threatening to NS control that they not only destroyed
works, and performed title-by-title surveillance of those
titles available to the public through libraries or through
stores, but regularly imprisoned dissenting writers, the
mechanism employed to control activity in the field of
architecture was more circumspect.
Modern architects of name did lose their offical
position, and their right to practice may, for a time, have
been contested,[97]
Yet where the architectural institu-
tions, the schools, the building societies, were dismantled,
the buildings continued to stand.
They seemed not to possess
the symbolic power which had been ascribed them. Or perhaps
97. See (Miller-Lane.1968, p.184). Hugo Haering's application
to the RKBK appears to have been initially denied, and
approved only after intercession by Chr. Loercher.[98]
Scharoun's file indicates that his application was
approved as a matter of course, although Lauterbach
indicates that the application also required intercession
to win approval. Ferdinand Kramer was, on the basis of
political persuasion, forbidden to practice. Both
Haering was required to surrender his license when he set
aside his practice to act as director for the "Kunst und
Werk" school. Sergius Ruegenberg's (Mies' project manager
for the Barcelona Pavilion) license was rescinded when he
was drafted, but returned when he received a contract
from the Air Ministry in the early forties. The RKbK
newsletter reported only instances in which licenses had
been revoked because an individual "disappeared".
98. (USDC.Haering)
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National Socialist Presence
Germany was simply not so wealthy in the early thirties that
it could afford to destroy its housing stock and municipal
infrastructure.
They were rather more subtle means which served to guide
the design profession through control of what could be said
or published.
It became more difficult to write of modern
projects, not to mention to discuss the social ideals which
had contributed to progress during the twenties. The spread
of programmes through exposure and competition, which had
been the mainstay of progress until the thirties, was
suddenly eliminated as a means to propel the practice. Modern
architects withdrew to private gatherings[99]
individual friendships[100]
or to
Those who depended on a public
forum emigrated.[101]
Those publications which still attempted to communicate
information on realizations of modern programmes avoided any
form of presentation which might lead to stylistic
99.
(AdK, Scharoun post-1945 correspondence).
100. See (BDA.1983).
101. This does not apply to those architects whose political
or personal histories would have made stay in Germany
hazardous.
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National Socialist Presence
controversies.[102]
They confined themselves to technical
descriptions and systematic surveys, and grounded any
ideological allusions in the interests of the middle
class.[103]
NS ideology
The least stringently regulated sphere of practice
during the thirties was free lance design for industrial
purposes.
In the first
case,
the regulatory tools established
by building codes and through the "Verordnung ueber
Baugestaltung" had only a limited effect, as the industrial
structures were not subject to the contextual constraints of
dwelling designs. In addition, the Reichswirtschafts
Ministerium pressed for efficiency and economy in design
regarding matters of industrial production.
In the second case the architect was privileged to act
as the representative of the owner. As a member of the middle
class, the owner had been awarded limited rights to represent
102. Hoffmann and Koch were continued to publish surveys
which included projects from modern designers. See
(Schuhmacher.1934), (Voelker.1939), (Hoffmann.1939).
103. See (Behne.1935), in which the family's domestic needs
are presented to justify the unorthodox plan
arrangement.
National Socialist Presence
-125-
his status through his dwelling. Whereas workers' housing was
directly controlled, in so far as the respective
organizations were dismantled or incorporated into partycontrolled housing societies, the only controls applicable to
dwelling design were building codes and development
plans.[104]
In each case, the regulatory authority was
-limited to the external form, as visible from public
property. Even in situations were the exterior form was
questioned, objections were overridden by arguments relating
the particular interior form to the owners needs and
interests, or linking the design to the site
conditions.[105]
In both instances, the structure of the mechanism of
"coordination" allowed individual practitioners more freedom
that might have been expected. The reorganization was carried
out by installing a new bureaucratic structure which would
establish, through the chain of authority, the control of a
small class over the entire institutional structure. Whereas
much attention was paid to the bureaucracy of this
104. eg the plans for the Domaene Dahlem. See page 101.
105. See, for example, Scharoun's rebuttal to objections
lodged against the Strauss and Scharf designs
(Anderson.1985).
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National Socialist Presence
transformation, very little effort went to develop the
substantive changes which were to have been executed.
This meant that the individual architect was not
contending with an unbending policy, but with the will of the
individual official who made a personal decision, according
-to form, but without substantive guidelines.
NS body
Finally, the body of the programme accepted principles
from conservative, reactionary, and avant-garde predecessors,
as consistent with the ideology applied to the respective
realms of practice. The tactics which resulted (for example
eminent domain powers for municipal design work, conformance
stipulations for private housing design, and design
guidelines for housing development design, or the antiquated
production methods used for monumental work and the
reinforced concrete technology used in industrial
construction) were specific to the realm of practice. The
executive tactics used to carry out the programmes bureaucratic consolidation and the "Fuehrerprinzip" -
led to
an environment in which personal decision was the final
authority.
The totalitarian ideal central to the NS programme
National Socialist Presence
-127-
appeared, in the projection into the body as two formal
principles:
- A design always signifies some institution of
authority. Its formal presence should demonstrate
mythically the necessity of that institution, and
recognize other influences only in that it brings
them into the desired relation to that authority.
- Designs are to be created by assembling repeated
elements. The individual elements are so that,
when repeated they do not introduce any qualities
which draw away from the signified authority, and
so that taken alone, they never develop any
independent, self-sufficient qualities.
Implications
At the beginning of National Socialist rule, the
free-lance architect, by virtue of association with industry
and with the private land owner, also had a degree of
latitude.
-
As the government reshaped the economy to support
a war, this changed drastically. Materials became scarce,
construction was first limited, and then forbidden. At the
same time government projects, related either to defense or
to the redesign of Berlin under Speer, were the only work
available to architects.
It appears that the conformity, which the NS regime was
unable to legislate, would eventually have been achieved by
becoming the only client.
In the meantime, the absence of
authority left the private architect able to develop a
-128-
National Socialist Presence
programme within those vague restrictions which had been
articulated.
Since, as it turned out, the framework was
never elaborated to support programmatic substance, the
effect was only to place organizations, according to level in
the hierarchy, under the control of individuals.
In order to
escape such control, a competing programme must have devalued
the significance of centralized authority in favor of
personal experience, or some other less controlled source.
On the basis of these observations, the actual situation
faced by the practicing architect appears,
in contrast to the
projected image, to have allowed for much more unorthodoxy
than the "total architecture" image projects.
National Socialist Presence
-129-
4.3.2 Scharoun's Practice
4.3.2.1 Collaborators
Two designers who figured prominently in Scharoun's
office during the thirties were Chen Kwan Li and Lubomir
Slapeta. Peter Pfankuch was present only during 1944, while
Erich Harendza had left because of the lack of work in 1932.
Other names were mentioned in correspondence during these
years,[106]
but it does not appear that they significantly
shaped the course of designs. The documents also indicate
that the planning work which Scharoun executed for the DAF
was carried out as a joint venture with the architect Willy
Kiesshauer.
Beyond Scharoun's contacts with his employees, he was
able to maintain few contacts with members of the profession
throughout this period.
During the first few years, the
architects who had stood close to the Ring managed to meet
unofficially. When many left the country, or were forced to
leave, the opportunities for meaningful contacts diminished.
It was possibly only through social gatherings, or through
106. A frenchman, Herr Francois, and someone referred to only
as "an officer" were mentioned in Scharoun's
correspondence.
-130-
Scharoun's Practice
individual meetings to maintain contact with practitioners of
similar positions.
In this way he was able[107]
contact with Boettcher,
Taut.
Haering,
Hoffman,
to maintain
Mattern,
and Max
Similar contacts with Mies, Gropius, and Wagner were
broken off when they left Germany.
In addition to this, affi-liations with other individuals
lent Scharoun a degree of protection and offered limited
opportunities for contracts. The partnership with the
developer Jakobowitz was broken off when his firm was
confiscated, but Scharoun's relations with Huss of the
Bremerhavener Wohnungsbaugesellschaft and with Menzel of the
the Gemeinnuetzige Wohnstaettenbau Gesellschaft in Berlin
continued in spite of the risk to those parties, and his
acquaintance to Schulte-Frohlinde may well have enabled him
to obtain planning contracts from the DAF.
4.3.2.2 Influence
It is clear from the above, that Scharoun's ability to
practice was contingent upon the particular circumstances.
The course of that practice, however, was not.
It would have
been possible to do as others did, to embrace the
107. Conversation with C.K. Li, summer 1983.
Scharoun's Practice
-131-
institutionally reinforced style. Even though he could
probably never have achieved the renown he held before
1933,[108]
his existence would have been more secure. He
could have taken a conservative path, to produce pleasant,
inoffensive houses which embodied an arbitrarily reduced
subset of those principles which had constituted his
programme during the twenties and cloaked them in traditional
forms.
It will be demonstrated in the presentation which
follows, that the programme which evolved from this conflict
maintained the integrity of and, in fact, represented an
advance upon his programme as it stood during the twenties.
It seems likely that his collaborators during this
period and the pressure from competing programmes were an
impetus to include new principles, yet the manner in which
they were integrated demonstrates the continued presence of a
core programme. The changes are manifest as the reaction to
the forced projection of the fascist ideology onto his image
of practice, and into the body of knowledge. Decisions may
also be explained as the outcome of his efforts to
accommodate or to circumvent propositions which had forced
108. The symbolic reconciliation represented by his
acceptance would have worked counter to the NS desire to
control through threatened exclusion.
Scharoun's Practice
-132-
their way into his body of knowledge.
This was the case with
a number of material restrictions and specific regulations.
The reaction took the form of recognizing isolated anomalous
propositions, and gradually readjusting the function of the
proposition within the respective realms, so that his hard
core would be maintained.
Successive designs may show that recent propositions
have begun to interact with established elemente, or in
certain instances, indicate that the propositions have been
rejected, by virtue of the presence of some negated
formulation.
In the event that no older proposition shows
change, the influence is then known to have not been
concerned with the substance of the programme.
The
respective realms demonstrate different degrees of susceptibility to this phenomena. Propositions operating within the
body of a programme show the greatest susceptibility,
followed by propositions concerning the image.
Ideological
propositions would tend to be the most difficult to project,
and are the most likely to be rejected.
In these terms, Scharoun's programme was insulated from
pressure in two ways. First because it ascribed a
conventional quality to culture and use, it was legitimate to
accommodate the conservative reaction.
Second, just as
Scharoun's Practice
-133-
multiple principles were permissible within a single design,
it was legitimate to execute a programme which embodied
distinct configurations of principles. This meant that
institutional regulations could be applied as far as was
required, while the unaffected aspects of the programme were
applied in whatever space was available. Furthermore, since
inconsistency carried no negative connotations, it was
conceivable to attempt to achieve a design which embodied as
full a range of principles as possible.
Scharoun's Practice
-134-
4.3.2.3 Continuous Development
The first phase of Scharoun's practice during the
thirties is marked by a concern to accommodate the stylistic
stipulations with which the various review authorities were
now much more demanding.[109]
In particular instances, new
propositions manifest themselves quite graphically in records
of the architect's work. The development of the relation
between the structural system and the spatial quality of a
house from the Schminke to the Strausz and Scharf designs is
a very clear example of this. In the first instance, the
structural frame is employed throughout the house, yet it has
an effect on the perceived space only where the architect
chooses to display it.
Figure 4-25:
Schminke house: View of living area
In the latter two houses, the two structural systems (frame
109. See page 101.
-135-
Scharoun's Practice
and bearing) are each spatially apparent.
Each system is
used to perform a distinct formal task. In addition, the
pitched roof is also employed to spatial effect. To that
extent, they have been internalized.
Figure 4-26:
Strauss house: View of
living area.
Figure 4-27:
Scharf house: View to
studio.
The appearance of the influence maintains the external
origins. In the Strauss case, the submission drawings record
the sketches in a hand other than Scharoun's for the new roof
form, and for both latter houses the letters with the
PBFM[llQ]
certainly demonstrate the divergence of interests.
Yet Scharoun could respond to the changes, and argued for one
formulation, as superior to the other. This indicates that,
within his programme, the terms of the objection had some
points of influence and means of representation.
110. See (Anderson.1985, p.466ff).
Scharoun's Practice
-136-
Figure 4-28:
Strauss house: Excerpt from submission drawings.
In another instance, the Bonk house, the design for a
subdivision house became the typological basis for a later
individual design. Typological propositions "internal" to
Scharoun's image were combined with the practical projections
of traditional ideology to produce components for a new
programme.
Figure 4-29:
Priort housing estate.
Figure 4-30:
Bonk house: SE view.
The next sections will present other specific instances
of influence in "programmatic" terms.
Scharoun's Practice
-137-
Body of Knowledge
This phenomena is easiest to follow for propositions
concerned with the body of a practice. It occurred during the
thirties with regard to the material resources available to
construct houses. On one hand the formal regulations limited
surface finishes. On the other the successive four-year plans
applied ever stricter limits to the quantities of building
materials available to construct a house. The most stringent
regulations limited each house to two tons of steel. If the
owner desired central heating, there would not be much left
over to carry long spans across open rooms or wide windows.
The Schminke house had set a standard, for Scharoun, for the
potential available from flat-plate steel framing. His first
houses after 1933 were much more modest endeavors. Where he
could, for example in the Baensch house, he continued to use
steel framing to escape the limitations in room shapes which
one wood framing, but by 1939, for the Mohrmann house, he
managed to extended the limits of bearing wall systems as far
as he needed to achieve the spatial configuration he desired.
Scharoun's Practice
-138-
Figure 4-31:
Noack house: elevation
Figure 4-32:
Baensch house: ground floor
plan
Uj
Li
Figure 4-33:
Noack house: plan
Figure 4-34:
Mohrmann house: second level
framing plan
These first houses also illustrate the effect of limitations
on roof forms. The Noack and Mattern designs included very
flat pitched roofs. They seem to be attempts to limit the
effects of the new formal propositions. In the Mattern house,
however, Scharoun began to exploit the formal potential of
the gable roof. He arched the interior ceiling, to improve
the light quality and reinforce the plan layout with the
section form. The Strausz house was to have had a similar
section.
-139-
Scharoun's Practice
Figure 4-35:
Strausz house: preliminary
schematic design
Figure 4-36:
Strausz house: south elevation
Figure 4-37:
Strausz house: altered permit drawing .
Figure 4-38:
Strausz house:
tion
eleva-
The first schematic design indicates that he hoped to use the
roof support posts, more deliberately than he had in the
Schminke house, to develop a patio on the south side of the
house.
The next version indicates that the living room
window was to face more towards the rear yard, which made the
extensive south overhang unnecessary.
The altered permit
drawing also indicates that the inspector pressured Scharoun
to use the higher roof form. Once that proposition was
operative, Scharoun pursued the implications independently.
Scharoun's Practice
-140-
By the time he finished, the arched ceiling had been
elaborated to distinguish between the spaces it spanned, at
the same time as it united them. The fenestration, the
interior finish work, and the timber framing were detailed to
reinforce the sense of continuity from the living room out
into the yard. The extra attic headroom was used for a heavy
timber truss, to span the length of the living room withoutemploying steel.
Even the exterior form was cause for
concern: Scharoun attempted to win approval for a gable roof,
since it would have maintained the directed form of the house
layout. As graphic an instance of "interference" as this may
be, it is also apparent that it concerned the content of
Scharoun's practice.
Figure 4-39:
Moll house: composite section.
Figure 4-40:
Biskupski house: composite
section.
The Moll house presents another development in the process.
The composite section depicts the roof as a continuous
surface, draped over the entire house.
In those places where
he desired large openings, he has eliminated the masonry
____ -
. MOF=
Scharoun's Practice
M
-141-
closure and allowed the wood framing to support the roof
independently.
In the mid-thirties a new principle appeared: levels
became continuous displaced surfaces as well as translated
surfaces.
This appears to have arisen first, in a minimal
form,.in the Strausz house.
When Scharoun was required to
maintain a particular height base, despite the undesirable
effects that would have had for the access to the rear
garden, he responded by introducing three steps between the
living area and the dining area.
U.
-~
A'-r~
:iy
.~-
-~
Figure 4-41:
Strausz house: schematic
plan. (note stair added)
Figure 4-42:
Biskupski house: plan
While the composite sections indicate that the translation
was still determined by the positions of the levels, the
plans indicate -that the virtually continuous quality of the
Scharoun's Practice
-142-
surface with a common use had come to figure in the
arrangement.
It also coincided with the development of
Lhe
spatially distinct masses mentioned above. The outcome of the
two developments were such plans as the Moll, Moller, and
Biskupski houses, in which the primary use surface is a
displaced plane. The Mohrmann and Endell houses illustrate
the same quality with less vertical displacement.
M
Figure 4-43:
Siemensstadt.
Figure 4-44:
Schminke house.
The attention to visual design which had been balanced
in the twenties with an interest to develop new spatial
types, diminished in the thirties.
The publications during
the twenties emphasized the graphic and compositional
qualities of Scharoun's spatial designs. The photographs of
projects such as Siemensstadt, Breslau, Weissenhof, and
-143-
Scharoun's Practice
Schminke[lll]
all strongly emphasized the compositional
qualities. The first publications during the thirties
emphasized those aspects of the design which contributed to
and represented the quality of use.
Figure 4-45:
Moll house
Figure 4-46:
Mattern House
Later, during the thirties, when compositional interests
began to reemmerge, the terms of the composition had changed.
Surfaces and frameworks had been augmented by more complex
systems of three dimensional correspondence.
When Scharoun
did not have the same materials at his disposal, the surface
compositions were not developed as dramatically, yet the same
principles appear in more reserved form.
111.
Although photographs of the Schminke house were first
published after 1933 they had been intended for a
pre-1933 editorial policy. They were eventually
published in Innen-Dekoration (n.3, 1934).
-144-
Scharoun's Practice
Figure 4-47:
Endell house
Figure 4-48:
Figure 4-49:
Mattern house: wall relief
in dining area.
Figure 4-50:
Moll house section, indicating wall relief.
Figure 4-51:
Moll house: view into dining
area: note ceiling.
-145-
Scharoun's Practice
Figure 4-52:
Endell house: south elevation.
Figure 4-53-:
Moeller addition: rendering.
The exterior surfaces of the houses retained their mediating
roles, with the additional, occasional, responsibility to
isolate the inhabitants from the public. The Endell facade
displays three zones, each corresponds to a particular mode
of mediation: containment for the garage, representation for
the private uses, and interior/exterior continuity for the
living area. The exterior finishes (stucco, brick, stone,
shutters) are so arranged that the interior path, form entry
to garden, is depicted on the facade. The design for the
extension to the Moeller house indicates a similar concern
for the unity of the existing house and the addition. He
accomplishes this through correspondence of materials and
sizes, and by continuing edges from one mass to the other.
The function of the stair, as a means to achieve the
-146-
Scharoun's Practice
transition to upper stories illustrates another development
in Scharoun's tactics during these years. In the first houses
after 1933, such as the Baensch, Hoffmeyer houses, and the
first Wenzeck design, the stair - which could no longer be
placed freely as in the Schminke and Stuttgart houses migrates to the middle of the plan, where there is sufficient
height to ensure adequate headroom. As the path through the
house becomes more deliberate, the stair is placed as
appropriate for the progression, while the external form of
the house develops to accommodate the volumes of the
individual spaces and of the access path.
.
This process had already begun with the curved stair in
Stuttgart, and with the split level solarium in the Hoffmeyer
house. In the Just and Biskupski designs, the access path including the stair - becomes integrated into the progression
of spaces. In the Mohrmann and Endell houses, the stair
becomes a reference point for the plan. The Scharf plan
employs the stair as a spatial element to create continuity
within the open living space.
In the Weigand house, the
stair alcove develops into a study at the same time as it
acts externally to define the entry.
Scharoun's Practice
Figure 4-54:
Scharf house: section
-147-
Figure- 4-55:
Mohrmann house: main floor
plan
In the latter part of the decade, even as the
regulations tightened, Scharoun became very capable at
manipulating these formal means to his ends. The presentation
sketches for the Scharf house indicate that the concern with
edges and openings was paramount. The roof floats above the
house mass, as if the form of the eave were determined by
some factor other then the wall upon which it bears. In order
to create the central gallery space, which was the purpose of
the house, Scharoun set a heavy timber, secondary structural
system on top of the masonry structure. Wood and masonry
construction are combined in the south facade to establish a
very comfortable relationship with the rear garden.
The Mohrmann house embodies the most elaborate spatial
configuration, and yet it was executed under the most severe
conditions.
The exterior bearing walls correspond to the
Scharoun's Practice
-148-
basic elements of the plan. They also determine the layout of
the main framing members. In order to arrive at the final
arrangement, Scharoun has shifted the basic masses, to open
the house towards the south.
The study and the dining alcove
have been placed to benefit from the orientation,
time as they form interior spaces.
at the same
The center bearing wall
is aligned and dimensioned to act as a unifying surface for
these spaces,
at the same time as it
extends the "interior"
zone of the house out into the garden, by virtue of its
direction and shape.
The various finishes are arranged to
help identify these use zones.
As in the Schminke house,
floor framing panels are arranged to accommodate this plan
form, and the roof timbers follow suit.
Finally, the entire
arrangement has been conceived to present an orderly although somewhat exaggerated, hip roof to the public.[112]
4.3.2.4 image
These examples
indicate that,
in contrast to his design
work prior to 1933, in which one may account for the varied
principles as experimental programmes, adopted provisionally
for single projects, the houses of the thirties demonstrate
that he could now sustain of a number of programmes
112. See figure
4-64.
Scharoun's Practice
-149-
simultaneously. He was able to do so by relaxing demands that
a design conform to standards of coherence. To augment those
principles of geometric and organic order, upon which he had
depended during the twenties, he began to develop principles
of spatial organization based on resemblance to natural
forms.
This coincided with an emphasis on movement as the most
significant means to comprehend the organization of the house
designs. The twenties designs had been readily surveyable and
comprehendable, while they were open, continuous plans. The
thirties houses were difficult to comprehend from any given
vantage point. The individual spaces withdrew into their
respective "worlds". Although the architect could still plan
from one vantage point, the inhabitant would never perceive
the order apparent in the drawing.
The users would begin to
comprehend the house as they moved through it. One means he
used to help this process was to develop the plan as a
sequence of spaces.
One wall of the house would be
elaborated as a surface against which these spaces would be
set. The opposite wall would open out - usually to the south
- onto the private yard, to provide access and a consistent
view as reference.
The plans for the Biskupski and Weigand
houses can be explained in this way.
-150-
Scharoun's Practice
Figure 4-56:
Fig
Biskupski house: plan
Weigand House: plan
This points out a subsidiary development in the body of
Scharoun's programme.
The references to movement had been
twofold during the twenties. His architecture projected
"ship-like" qualities through the presence of maritime
details: round windows, continuous pipe railings, swooping
parapets, curved walls. He also made the shapes of spaces
correspond to travel paths, with results such as the
Boersenhof office building.
In the thirties, the houses
serve to transport the inhabitants from the public world to
various private domains, to bring into intimate contact with
the landscape, or to focus on some particular activity. The
intent to transport the inhabitant figuratively, as well as
physically is central to these houses.
The function of the stair, illustrates another tactical
development in Scharoun's practice during these years. In the
first houses after 1933, such as the Baensch, Hoffmeyer
-151-
Scharoun's Practice
houses , and the first Wenzeck design, the stair - which
could no longer be placed freely as in the Schminke and
Stuttgart houses - migrates to the middle of the plan, where
there is sufficient height to ensure adequate headroom. As
the path through the house becomes more deliberate, the stair
is placed as appropriate for the progression, while the
external form of the house develops to accommodate the
volumes of the individual spaces and of the access path.
Figure 4-58:
Hoffmeyer house: plan.
Figure 4-59:
Wenzeck house: plan, first
version.
This process had already begun with the curved stair in
Stuttgart, and with the split level solarium in the Hoffmeyer
house. In the Just and Biskupski designs, the access path including the stair - becomes integrated into the progression
of spaces. In the Mohrmann and Endell houses, the stair
becomes a reference point for the plan. The Scharf plan
employs the stair as a spatial element to create continuity
within the open living space.
In the Weigand house, the
stair alcove develops into a study at the same time as it
-152-
Scharoun's Practice
acts externally to define the entry.
The most specific attempt by the NS programme to
influence Scharoun's image of practice had been the attempt
to regulate and standardize design.
Yet, so long as he could
maintain reflection and analysis at a higher precedence in
his image than convention, he would continue to develop his
own designs.
The changes to the "Bauordnung" had not been
sufficiently restrictive to effect his programme.
If he were
to have continued to plan with "Neue Heimat" he would have
been relieved from all the other regulations which the
"Baupolizei" enforced.
This is not to imply that Scharoun
was averse to convention. He had, himself, developed many
standards. He developed dwelling standards for "Neue Heimat"
to be used in post-war reconstruction.
His files even
contained the then current standard dwelling plans. In spite
of that, the standards he developed maintained a degree of
spatial differentiation more in keeping with the Siemsstadt
apartments than the "uniform dwelling type".
ideology
Finally, Scharoun concurred with the proposition that
architecture should mediate between the individual and
Scharoun's Practice
-153-
society. Yet, he also believed that architecture should
represent and facilitate the individual's efforts at
self-realization, rather than demonstrate the individual's
allegiance to centralized authority.
In the course of the
development of the work during the thirties, the proposition
of individuality began to predominate: the plans shifted away
from hierarchic order to a conventional and asynchronous
order. This shift produced changes within more than one
realm.
Within the body of his practice, it was a priority to
develop spaces for each individual use. He developed the form
of the intermediate spaces according to the shape and of the
dependent spaces, and arranged them according to conventional
rules rather than abstract rules.
For example, a sequence of
articulated spaces with a consistent view would be a more
likely access arrangement than a corridor.
It accompanied a
shift in the image of the practice, reducing the significance
of communal order. When, in the course of planning officers'
dwellings in Bremerhaven, the client was more concerned that
the houses to be planned around a rigid courtyard - in order
to represent their unity - than that the designs individual
houses be developed as appropriate for their particular
position, Scharoun refused the project.
While the material influence mentioned above induced
accommodation, the ideological pressure acted to isolate
Scharoun's Practice
-154-
Scharoun's programme from the context.
When the social order
became more restrictive, Scharoun employed the street facades
more as a means to insulate the inhabitants from the outside
world than to link the two.
7
0
L
C3 C
Figure 4-60:
Schminke house: Plan
1929-1933
Figure 4-61:
Siemensstadt apartment: Plan
1930
Figure 4-62:
Neue HeTmat housing: Types
1941.
The entries of the Schminke house and the Siemensstadt
apartment plans were formed so as to introduce the visitor to
adjacent spaces in the dwelling, the entries in dwellings in
the thirties tended to isolate the visitor from the more
private areas in the dwelling.
There were also propositions
-155-
Scharoun's Practice
which acted to insulate Scharoun's programme from influence.
The most resistent proposition was that the act of design was
un unconscious formal process, beyond the conscious control
of either the designer or of any objective regulation. This
acted in tandem with the conviction that the individual's
experience was the central purpose of architecture to make
Scharoun's programme unresponsive to NS pressures to
recognize and represent centralized authority in designs.
*
Figure 4-63:
Baensch house: street
facade.
IT
4-64:
Mohrmann house: street
elevation.
The first facades Scharoun executed after 1933 were
rather direct in representing the conceptual structure of the
house. The northwest elevation of the Baensch house marks the
entry with a chimney and a shift in the surface of the
facade. This edge supports the openings in the facade as well
as anchoring the separation, in plan, between the living and
the service zones
husband and wife
-
on the ground floor, and between the
on the upper floor.
Scharoun's Practice
-156-
Figure 4--65:
Weigand house: street elevation.
Fiqure 4-66:
Weidhaas house: street
elevation.
In the Mohrmann, Weigand, and Weidhaas designs, the street
facade has developed a representative quality separate from
the interior activities. Access to the house no longer passes
through the street elevation
,
it
occurs through an entrance
behind the facade, on the side of the house. Those windows
which cannot be reconciled to the symmetrical form of the
gable wall float freely, without restraint, and without
regard for the other openings.
On the opposite side of those
same houses, the elements are deployed in ever closer
correspondence to the uses contained.
The contrast which develops between the public and
private facades develops in parallel with contrasts in the
plan organization.
A zone appears behind the duplicitous
facades, enveloped by that facade and closed off from the
remainder of the house, to contain service spaces, or other
private rooms. The entry access and a stair to the upper
-157-
Scharoun's Practice
Figure 4-67:
Mohrmann house: south elevation.
Figure 4-68:
Mohrmann house: Ground floor
plan.
Figure 4-69:
Weigand house: south elevation.
Figure 4-70:
Weigand house: Ground floor
plan.
ao
OaH[
Figure 4-71:
Weidhaas house: south elevation.
Figure 4-72:
Weidhass house: Ground floor
plan.
floor usually develop within this mass, while the other
Scharoun's Pract ice
-158-
living spaces depend on the interior edge to define some of
their use zones.
Yet while the shape of this mass is
important, the quality of the interior spaces does not
signify the external uses. When considered at the size of the
entire plan, the spaces are acting as a single element in the
design. This sort of hierarchy appears in the Weidhaas,
Biskupski, Just, Moeller, Moll, and Bonk houses.
rI.
Figure 4-73:
Bonk house: ground plan.
Figure 4-74:
Moll house: main floor plan.
Scharoun's Practice
-159-
4.3.3 Assessment
Scharoun believed the meaning of architecture was to
"signify life". During the period of National Socialist rule
in Germany, an attentive individual would have been hard
pressed not to be concerned exactly what life was to be
signified.
Scharoun had been relieved of his teaching post.
No public forum was open to him. He was visited by the
Gestapo on more than one occasion. His partner, Rading, was
forced to leave Germany. During the last year of the war the
only communication he had with Haering were postcards, "signs
of life", sent as indications that he had survived yet
another bombing raid.
Yet he remained, convinced that the condition was
temporary. When it passed, the problem of building would
still be waiting to be tackled.
Scharoun's model of cultural
evolution enabled him to remain in the presence of an
overbearing competitor, without having to submit to it. He
drew on Haering's model to propose organic design as an
inevitable stage, which was to develop from the contingent
conditions
This account has demonstrated that in spite of the
hindrances and interference, Scharoun was able to continue
-160-
Scharoun's Practice
his practice, to continue to work on the problems posed by
"new building". The circumstances presented above demonstrate
that Scharoun was able to accommodate sufficient particular
stipulations from the NS programme that they were not able to
prevent his practice. The manner in which the propositions
. were accommodated demonstrates the mechanism of a programme's
progress, from the first anomalous appearance to the eventual
integration.
"External" principles were first accommodated
conventionally within his programme, then began to influence
the "internal" composition of the programme by inducing
adjustment within an individual realm, or through projection
into another realm. These propositions finally represented
integral elements of a new programme when they contributed to
the core of the new programme.
Whereas one must account for the varied principles
manifested in Scharoun's design work prior to 1933 as
experimental programmes, each adopted for a single project,
the houses of the thirties demonstrate that he was now able
to avail himself of a number of programmes simultaneously.
They also demonstrated that the precedence among the
propositions remained unchanged. It follows that the
essential thematic quality of the programme remained
unchanged over the course of the transformation.
List of Works
-161-
Appendix A
List of Works
The works presented in this chronological list are
identified by two numbers. The first number, in parentheses,
designates the objects relative chronological position
according to the best information at my disposal.
The second
number is the project's designation according to the list of
works drawn up by Peter Pfankuch.[1]
In most cases the numbers will agree. A few new projects
(indicated by a " -
" in the place of the Pfankuch number )
and some corrections in dates introduce some discrepancies.,
The designation " W " indicates the project was a competition
entry. The designation " E " indicates the project did not
proceed beyond the design stage. The designation " U
indicates the project was an alteration to an existing
structure.
1. (Pfankuch.1976)
-162-
List of Works
A.1 Projects 1927-1932
(58): (58)
Transportable Woodframed
House at the GuGaLi German Garden and Crafts
Exhibition
Liegnitz /N.S.
hergestellt von Christof
& Unmack, Niesky/O.L.[2]
1927
(59):(59)
Single Family House for
the Werkbund Exhibition
>>Die Wohnung<<
Stuttgart - Weissenhof
23.VII - 23.X.1927
1927
(60):(60)IE
Passage through the Ministry Gardens
Berlin
urban design proposal
1927
(61):(63)|IE
Adriabad, Schwimmbad am
Zoo
Berlin
(62):(61)IWE
Fire Station
Breslau
1927
2. The same firm would construct the Schminke House
and the "Growing House" in
Berlin.
(63):(63)IWE
1927
Reichstag Addition
Berlin
>>Balance<<, 2 versions
(64):(64)IE
1927
Wohnblock Dahlem Dorf
Berlin
(65):(65)IWE
Evangelisch Kirche
Breslau-Zimpel
1928
(66):(66)IWE
Schule
Breslau-Zimpel
1928
(67):(67)|IE
1928
Ledigenheim am Eingang
einer Siedlung
Breslau
(68):(68)IWE
1928
Stadthalle und Ausstellungshallen
Bremen
1928
(69):(69)IWE
Schulhausgruppe Schlichtallee
Berlin-Lichtenberg
(70):(70)IWE
Einfamilienhaus
>>Weite<< for Velhagen
and Klasings Monthly
Journal
-163-
List of Works ('27-'32)
1928
(71):(71)IE
Hotel in Wesermuende
1928
(72):(72)IWE
Richard Wagner Memorial
Leipzig
1928-29
(73):(73)
Kaiserdamm Apartment
Dwellings
Berlin-Charlottenburg
(Kaiserdamm 25 /
Koenigen-ElisabethStrasze / Fredericia
strasze)
(74):(74)
1929
Wohnbauten Kaiserstrasze
Bremerhaven
(Buergermeister Schmidt
Strasze)
1929
(75):(75)IE
Wohnheim am Heidelberger
Platz
Berlin-Wilmersdorf
(76):(76) IE
Wohnblock Paulsbornerstrasze
Berlin-Wilmersdorf
(Paulsborner- /
Eisenzahn- /
Westfaelische- /
Albrecht-AchillesStrasze)
1929
(77):(77)
1929
Wohnheim an der Werkbundausstellung
>>Wohnung und Werkraum<<
Breslau, 15.VI-15.IX.1929
(78):(78)|IE
1929
Ausstellungspavilion
Desta
Deutsche Eisen- und
Stahl- Gesellschaft
(79):(79)
1929-30
Hohenzollerndamm Apartment house
Berlin-Wilmersdorf
Hohenzollerndamm 35-36 /
Mansfelderstrasze 29
(80):(80)IWE
1929
Justizgebaeude
Berlin-Tiergarten
Invalidenstrasze, Alt-,
Moabit StraszeRathenauer
Strasze
(81):(81)
1 930
Siedlung Siemensstadt
BerlinCharlottenburg/Spandau
Siteplaning of settlement; Apartments at
Jungfernheideweg, and
Maeckeritzstrasze
(82):(82)IE
1 930
Dwelling block Lindner
Berlin
-164-
List of Works ('27-'32)
(83):(83)IE
1930
(91):(92)IE
1931
Dwelling house Kottbusser
Tor
Berlin-Kreuzberg
1930
(92):(93)|IE
Dwelling house
Treseburger Ufer
Berlin-Neukoelln
1931
(93): (94) IE
Dwelling house
Hauptstrasze
Berlin-Schoeneberg
1931
Row houses - Type
Schlachtensee
Berlin
(84):(84)IE
Row house - Type Halensee
Berlin
1929
(85):(85)IWE
Richard-Wagner-Memorial
Leipzig
(86): (86)
Dwelling House
Flinzberger Place 3
Berlin-Wilmersdorf
1931
(94):(95)IE
1931
Dwelling house Kaiserdamm
Berlin-Charlottenburg
(87):(88)|IE
1931
Storefront advertising
for Leiser
Berlin
(95):(96)|IE
Wonolett
1931
Typed floor plans
(88):(89)IWE
1931
War victims memorial in
Thueringer Forest
(89):(90)IUE
Steinhausen House
Falkenhain(Berlin)
(96):(97)|IE
Moeller house
Potsdam
three single family
houses
1931
(97):(98)|IE
Gallery Apartments
Berlin
1931
1931
(90):(91)IWE
1931
The contemporary home
for Bauwelt
(98):(99)|IE
1931
single family house, type
Loebau
Loebau
List of Works ('27-'32)
(99):(100)IE
-165-
1931
"Kettenhaus am Hang"
single family - semi-
(105):(106)IE
1931
Apartment house
Reichstrasze
Berlin-Charlottenburg
detached houses
1931
(100):(101)IE
City outskirts settlement
house
>>Stadtrandsiedlungs
haus<<
(106):(107)IE
1931
Dwelling types for a
double loaded corridor
house
(Mittelganghaus)--
(w/ E.Gutkind)
1931
(101):(102)IE
Dwelling block and
Theater
Berlin-Charlottenburg
Spandauer Damm / Ecke
Sophie-Charlotten-Strasze
(102):(103)|E
1931
"Aussiedlung Berlin"
Berlin
two story Dwelling row
houses
(103):(104)|E
Type plan designs
(107):(108)IE
1931
Apartment house Hindenburgplatz
Bremerhaven
(108):(124)
Schminke House
Loebau/Sachsen
(garden by Herta
Hammerbacher)
1931-33
(109):(109)|IE
1932
Single family house /
"Flachtyp" I, II, III
1931
"Vierspaenner" for four
story dwelling houses
1931
(104):(105)|IE
Dwelling development
Wannsee
Berlin-Wannsee
(w.Rading)
(110):(110)IE
1932
Baukaro (modular based
house type plans)
(for Jakobowitz / Christof & Unmack)
-166-
List of Works ('27 -'32)
(111):(111)
the extendible
"Das wachsende
Berlin
Wood house for
hibition "sun,
house for all"
1932
house /
Haus"
(118):(119)IE
1932
Wohnheim mit variablen
Typen
the exair and
(112):(112)|E
(119):(120)IE
Wohnheim
1932
Dwelling block
Landsberger Allee
Berlin-Lichtenberg
(113):(113) IE
Film Theater
Bremerhaven
1932
(114):(114) IE
Panke Park
Berlin-Wedding
(excursion park to
Bernau)
1932
(115):(115)|E
1932
The transportable house
plan types
(116):(116)
1931-33
Dwelling Block Hohenzollernring
Berlin-Spandau
Hohenzollernring -
Falkenseer Chausee
(117):(118)
Schuldenfrey House
Berlin-Dahlem
Garystrasze 26
1932
1932
(1- and 2- bed types,
four and six entry)
(120):(121)|IE
1932
Single family house with
terrace addition
-167-
List of Works ( '27-' 32)
A.2 Projects 1933-1945
1932-33
(121):(122)
Dwelling block
Zweibrueckerstrasze
Berlin-Spandau
Zweibrueckerstrasze
38-46, Hohenzollernring
see pf16
1933
(122):(123)IE
The variable dwelling
(prototypical design for
combined of dwellings and
bachelor flats)
(123):(117)
Wenzeck house
1933
(128):(128)
Mattern House
Bornim( Potsdam)
(garden by Mattern)
(129):(
-
)
1933
1934
Benkhof house
Nedlitz(Potsdam)
(130):(149)
Noack House
Nedlitz(Potsdam)
1934
(131):(129)
1934
Anker noodle factory
Loebau/Sachsen
(garage; cafeteria;
lounges; farm house; site
planning)
Berlin - Frohnau
Maximillian Korso 31
1930-34
(124):(87)IWE
Stadthalle Rostock
1934
(132):(130)IE
Northsea Cluster
Wesermuende, Buergerpark
Officers housing
1934-35
(125):(125)
Strausz House
Berlin-Dahlem
Hueninger Strasze 39
1934
(133):(131)HE
Vitznau vacation houses
Vitznau / Switzerland
(houses for an hotel
vacation colony)
(126):(126)IWE
Stockholm
1933
Replanning for the ne ighborhood Normalm
1933
(127):(127)IE
Alexanderplatz
Wohnheim
Berlin
(134):(132)
1934
Mueller-Oerlinghausen
mosaic workshop
Berlin-Charlottenburg
Clausewitzstrasze
-168-
List of Works ('33-'45)
(135):(134)
1935
Baensch House
Berlin-Spandau
Weinmeisterhoehe, Hoe henweg 9
(garden by H.Mattern)
(136):(
-
)IE
1935
Priort Housing Estate
(collaboration with the
GWG)
(137):(135)
Hoffmeyer House
Bremerhaven
Friesenstrasze 6
1936
(138):(136)
1935
Hottengrund settlement
Berlin-Kladow,Hottengrund
(139):(137)
1935
Pflaum House (BaderBornschein)
Falkensee(Berlin)
(140):(138)
1935
Dwelling house
Kaiserstrasze
Bremerhaven
Buergermeister Schmidt
Strasze
(141):(139)
1936
Dwelling settlement im
Eichengrund
Berlin-Heiligensee
Schulzendorferstrasze
(for the GWG) (garden
H. Mattern)
(142):(140)
Moll House
Berlin-Grunewald
Trabenerstrasze 74a
(garden H.Mattern)
(destroyed 1944)
1936
(143):(153)
1937
Scharf House
Berlin-Schmargendorf
Miquelstrasze 39a, 39b
(garden H.Mattern)
(144):(
-
)
1937
Scharf Development
Berlin, Dahlem
Miquelstrasze, Hammersteinstrasze
(145):(141)
1937
Elbestrasze single family
houses
Bremerhaven
Elbestrasze - Ecke
Bleszmannstrasze
(146):(142)
1937
Moeller House
Zermuetzelsee
(Altruppin)/ Mark Branden
burg
(garden H.Mattern)
-169-
List of Works ('33-'45)
(147):( -
)
1938-42
Neue Heimat
Bautzen, Bernau,
Leipzig-Molkau,
Leipzig-Lieberwolkwitz,
Loebau,
Neugersdorf Saxon,
Oberoderwitz Sa.,
Ottendorf-Okrilla Sa.,
Radeburg,
Reichenbach-Neusalza Sa.,
Tharandt.
(Planning for post-war
urban reconstruction.
Collaboration with
W. Kiesshauer.
(148):(144)
1938
Single-family Housing
Bleszmannstrasze
Bremerhaven
(149):(145) Iu
Krueger House
Berlin-Nikolassee
An der Rehwiese 4
(destroyed 1982)
1938
(150):(146)
Bonk House
Bornim(Potsdam)
Am Raubfang
1938
(153):(150)IUE
Dwelling house
Yorkstrasze
Bremerhaven
Yorkstrasze
1939
(154):(151) IE
Weidhass House
Leipzig
(7 versions)
1939
(155):(152)
1939
Silbermann Garden bath
house
Brandenburg/Havel
(156): (154)
1938-40
Mohrmann House
Berlin-Lichtenrade
Falkensteinstrasze 10
(157) : (155)
19 39
Kaiserstrasze Dwelling
houses
Bremerhaven
Kaiserstrasze 240-254
(for BWG)
1938-44
(151):(147)IE
Humboldstrasze Single
family houses
Berlin-Reinickendorf
(for GWG)
1938
(152):(148)|IE
Just House
Berlin Schlachtensee
(158):(156)
1940
Endell House
Berlin-Wannsee
Am kleinen Wannsee 30b
(159):(157)
1940
Mueller-Oerlinghausen
studio alteration
Berlin-Charlottenburg
Kantstrasze 12
List of Works ('33-'45)
-170-
1941
(160):(143)IE
Biskupski House
Zermuetzelsee(Altruppin)
1941-43
(161):(158)
Central Laundry research
proj ect
(for the
Reichsforschungsgesellschaft)
(162):(159)
Weigand House
Borgsdorf(Berlin)
1942
1943
(163):(160)IU
Mueller-Oerlinghausen
House
Kreszbronn/Bodensee
1943
(164):(161)|IE
addition
Moeller House
(see pf142)
(165):(
-
)|E
1944
Rittmeister House
(166):(
-
)
Fa. Printator
Umspannstation, Nieder
spannungsschaltraum, u.
Betriebswerkstatt
Bibliography
-171-
Appendix B
Bibliography
In addition to the works listed below, documents from
the Akademie der Kuenste, Berlin (AdK), the
Deutsches Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (BA), the
Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Berlin (GSA), the Landesarchive,
Berlin (BLA),
and the United States Document Center,
Berlin
(USDC) were used in the presentations of the institutional
context and the NS programme. These materials are cited in
the text, according to the signature appropriate to the
respective institution.
(Achleitner.1968)
Alois Johann Welzenbacher; 1899
-
1955
Friedrich Achleitner, Ottokar Uhl
Salzburg: (1968) Residenz Verlag
(AIVB.1970)
Berlin und seine Bauten
(T.4, Bd.A)
Architekten und Ingenieurverein zu Berlin
Berlin: (1970) Wilhelm Ernst und Sohn
(AIVB.1974)
Berlin und seine Bauten
(T.4, Bd.B)
Architekten- und Ingenieurverein zu Berlin
Berlin: (1974) Wilhelm Ernst und Sohn
-172-
Bibliography
(AIVB.1975)
Berlin und seine Bauten
(T.4, Bd.C)
Architekten- und Ingenieurverein zu Berlin
Berlin: (1975) Wilhelm Ernst und Sohn
(Allen,1973)
The Nazi Seizure of Power
William Sheridan Allen
New York: (1973) Franklin Watts Inc.
(Anderson.1984)
"Architectural Design as a System of Research Programs"
in
Design Studies
Stanford Anderson
Cambridge: (1984)
(Anderson.1984)
"Architectural Research Programs in the Work of
Le Corbusier"
Stanford Anderson
Cambridge: (1984)
(Anderson.1985)
The Architecture of Hans Scharoun: Works 1933
James Anderson
Cambridge, Ma.: (1985) M.I.T. Thesis
(BDA.1983)
"verordnete Architektur"
(Zeitzeugengespraech 23.1.1983)
Groetzebach, ed.
NB
unpublished manuscript
Berlin: () Bund Deutscher Architekten
(Beetz)
Kleinwohnungshaeuser
(Praktische Anleitung und Beispiele)
M. Beetz
Wiesbaden: Heimkultur Verlag GmbH
(Behne.1912)
Der Inkrustationsstil in Toscana
Adolf Behne
Berlin: (1912) Ebering
-
1945
Bibliography
-173-
(Behne.1919)
Die Stadtkrone
Adolf Behne
Jena: (1919) Diederichs
(Behne.1919)
Wiederkehr der Kunst
Adolf Behne
Leipzig: (1919) Kurt Wolff
(Behne.1923)
"Die Internationale Architektur-Ausstellung im- Bauhaus
zu Weimar"
Bauwelt, (n37, p533, 1923)
in
NB
(Pfankuch.1974, p40f)
Berlin:
(Behne.1926)
Der moderne Zweckbau
Adolf Behne
Muenchen: (1926) Drei Masken Verlag
(Behne.1927)
Max Taut; Bauten und Plaene
Neue Werkkunst series
Adolf Behne
Berlin: (1927) F.E. Huebsch
(Behne.1927)
Neues Wohnen, neues Bauen
Adolf Behne
Leipzig: (1927) Hesse & Becker
(Behne.1928)
Eine Stunde Architektur
Adolf Behne
Stuttgart: (1928) Akademischer Verlag Dr. Fritz Wedekind
u.Co.
(Behne.1929)
Berlin in Bildern
Adolf Behne
Wien: (1929) H. Epstein
(Behne.1929)
Das neue Berlin; Groszstadtprobleme
Adolf Behne
Berlin: (1929) Deutsche Bauzeitung GmbH
Bibliography
-174-
(Behne.1931)
Wochenende - und was man dazu braucht
Adolf Behne
Dr. Emil Schaefer, ed.
Zuerich: (1931) Orell Fussli
(Behne.1935)
"Haus Mattern in Bornim bei Potsdam"
in
Deutsche Bauzeitung, (16 I. 1935; H.3; S.53ff)
Adolf Behne
Berlin: (1935)
(Behne.1946)
Heinrich Ehmsen
Kunst der Gegenwart (2)
Adolf Behne
Potsdam: (1946) E. Stichnote
(Behne.1947)
Entartete Kunst
Adolf Behne
Berlin: (1947) Carl Haber' Verlagsbuchhandlung
(Behne.1948)
WernerScholz
Kunst der Gegenwart
Adolf Behne
Potsdam: (1948) E. Stichnote
(Behrendt.1927)
Der Sieg des neuen Baustils
W.C. Behrendt
Stuttgart: (1927) F. Wedekind & Co.
(Behrendt.1937)
Modern Building; its Nature, Problems, and Forms
W.C. Behrendt
New York: (1937) Harcourt, Brace & Co.
(Benevolo.1977)
History of Modern Architecture
Leonardo Benevolo
Cambridge: (1977) MIT Press
Bibliography
-175-
(Benjamin.1980)
"Erfahrung und Armut"
in
Illuminationen
Walter Benjamin
Frankfurt a.M.: (1980) Suhrkamp
(Benton.1975)
Design 1920's
Tim Benton, Charlotte Benton & Aaron Scharf
Milton Keynes: (1975) Open University Press
(Benton.1975)
Expressionism
Tim Benton
Milton Keynes: (1975) Open University Press
(Benton.1975)
The International Style
Tim Benton, Charlotte Benton
Milton Keynes: (1975) Open University Press
(Benton.1975)
The New Objectivity
Tim Benton
Milton Keynes: (1975) Open University Press
(Borngraber.1979)
"The Social Impact of the New Architecture in Germany
and the Building of New Frankfurt"
in
Architectural Association Quarterly, (Vol.11; No.1)
Christian Borngraber
London: (1979)
(Borsi.1967)
Architettura Del L'Espressionismo
F. Borsi, G.K. Konig
Genova: (1967) Vitale & Ghianda
(Brenner.1963)
Die Kunstpolitik des Nationalsozialismus
Hildegard Brenner
Hamburg: (1963) Rowholt Taschenbuch
-176-
Bibliography
(Buege.1939)
Gemeinschaftssiedlungen
(Finanzierungshilfen des Reiches zu den Aufschliessungsarbeiten und Gemeinschaftseinrichtungen)
Max Buege
Berlin: (1939) Verlagsgesellschaft Rudolf Mueller
(Buege.1942)
Der Bau von Volkswohnungen
Max Buege, et.al.
Berlin: (1942) Verlagsgesellschaft Rudolf Mueller
(Burckhardt.1980)
The Werkbund
Lucius Burckhardt
London: (1980) The Design Council
(Campbell.1978)
The German Werkbund
Joan Campbell
Princeton, NJ: (1978)
(Coldewey.1982)
"Hans Scharoun und seine Heimatstadt Bremerhaven"
Helmut Coldewey
Bremerhaven: (1982)
(Conrads.1970)
Programs and Manifestoes of 20th Century Architecture
Ulrich Conrads
Cambridge: (1970) MIT Press
(DAF)
Der Wohnungsbau in Deutschland
Berlin: (1939-1942) Verlag der deutschen Arbeitsfront
GmbH
(Dal Co.1978)
"Interview with Albert Speer, October 1977"
Oppositions 12
Francesco Dal Co, Sergio Polano
Cambridge: (1978) MIT Press
(Damann.1914)
Das Eigenheim des Buergers
Walter H. Damann, Emil J. Abigt
Wiesbaden: (1914) Heimkultur Verlagsgesellschaft
Bibliography
-177-
(DWB. 1982)
Die zwanziger Jahre des Deutschen Werkbundes
Deutscher Werkbund
Giessen/Lahn: (1982) anabas
(Elkana.1974)
"Boltzmann's Scientific Research Program and its
Alternatives"
The Interaction Between Science and Philosophy
in
Yehuda Elkana
(1974) Humanities Press
(Elkana)
"A Programmatic Attempt at an Anthropology of Knowledge"
Yehuda Elkana
(Feyerabend.1978)
Against Method
Paul Feyerabend
London: (1978) Verso
(Frank.1983)
"ein Bauhaus vor dem Bauhaus"
Bauwelt, (v.74, 4.XI.83, p1640f)
in
Hartmut Frank
Berlin: (1983) Bertelsmann GmbH
(Franken.1937)
Die Neuordnung der Kleinsiedlung
Joseph Franken
Berlin: (1937) Verlag Siedlung und Wirtschaft GmbH
(Frampton.1980)
Modern Architecture
Kenneth Frampton
New York: (1980) Oxford University Press
(Grote.1974)
"Die Deutsche Stadt im 19. Jahrhundert"
Stadtplanung und Baugestaltung im industriellen
Zeitalter
Ludwig Grote, ed.
Muenchen: (1974) Prestel-Verlag
-178-
Bibliography
(Haering.5.1926)
"die tradition, schultze-naumbvurg und wir"
in
Die Form, n.8, 5.1926
NB
(Joedicke.1965, p19)
[Berlin]: (1965 [1926])
(Haering.1931)
"bemerkung zum aesthetischen problem des neuen bauens"
in
Bauwelt, (n.19, 1931)
Hugo Haering
NB
(Joedicke.1965, p.24)
[Berlin]: (1965 [1931])
(Haering.7.1934)
"proportionen"
in
Deutsche Bauzeitung, (n.29, 18.7.1934)
Hugo Haering
NB
(Joedicke.1965, p.32)
[Berlin]: (1965 [1934])
(Haering.1934)
"probleme der stilbildung"
in
Deutsche Bauzeitung, (n.43, 24.10.34; n.47,
21.11.34).
Huge Haering
NB
(Joedicke.1965, p35ff)
Berlin: (1934)
(Haering.1947)
neues bauen
Schriftenreihe des Bundes Deutscher Architekten (3)
Huge Haering
NB
(Joedicke.1956, p57ff)
Stuttgart [Hamburg]: (1947) [BDA]
(Haering.1951)
"geometrie und organik"
in
Baukunst und Werkform, (9.1951)
Huge Haering
NB
(Joedicke.1965, p65)
(Haering.1965)
Schriften, Entwuerfe, Bauten
Hugo Haering
Joedicke, Lauterbach, ed.
Stuttgart: (1965) Karl Kraemer
Bibliography
-179-
(Haering.1968)
Fragmente
Schriftenreihe der Akademie der Kuenste (1)
Hugo Haering
Margot Aschenbrenner, ed.
Berlin: (1968) Gebr. Mann
(Heinrichsbauer.1936)
Industrielle Siedlung im Ruhrgebiet; in Vergangenheit,
Gegenwart und Zukunft
A. Heinrichsbauer
Essen: (1936) Verlag Glueckauf GmbH
(Hennig.1973)
Thesen zur deutschen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte
1933 bis 1938
Eike Hennig
Frankfurt a.M.: (1973) Suhrkamp Verlag
(Herrmann.1977)
Deutsche Baukunst
vl: von 1770
v2: von 1840
Wolfgang Herrmann
Stuttgart: (1977)
des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts
bis 1840
bis zur Gegenwart
Birkhauser
(Hilberseimer.1967)
Berliner Architektur der 20er Jahre
Ludwig Hilberseimer
Mainz: (1967) Florian Kuperberg
(Hitchcock.1966)
The International Style
Henry-Russell Hitchcock, Phillip Johnson
New York: (1966) W.W. Norton, Inc.
(Hoffmann.1939.a)
(fuer Garten, Gebirge, und See)
Haus und Raum (IV)
Ferien Haeuser
Stuttgart: (1939) Julius Hoffmann Verlag
(Hoffmann.1939.b)
(fuer Garten, Gebirge, und See)
Haus und Raum (I)
Neue Villen und Kleinhaeuser
Stuttgart: (1939) Julius Hoffmann Verlag
-180-
Bibliography
(Hoffmann.1941)
Garten und Haus
Herbert Hoffmann
(1941) Julius Hoffmann Verlag
(Holton.1973)
Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought
Gerald Holton
Cambridge: (1973) Harvard University Press
(Huse.1975)
Neues Bauen -
1918 bis 1933--
Norbert Huse
Muenchen: (1975) Heinz Moos
(Innen-Dekoration)
Innen-Dekoration: Architektur und Wohnform
Alexander Koch, ed.
Stuttgart:
(1926 -
1949)
(Jackson.1970)
The Politics of Architecture
Anthony Jackson
Toronto:.(1970) University of Toronto Press
(Janofske.1982)
Die Architekturauffassung Hans Scharouns
(ihr gedanklicher Ansatz und dessen praktische
Umsetzung)
NB
published 1983
Darmstadt: (1982) Technische Hochschule Darmstadt PhD.
(Jones.1975)
"Late Works of Hans Scharoun"
in
Architectural Review, (111.75)
Peter Blundell Jones
London: (1975)
(Jones.1978)
Hans Scharoun
Peter Blundell Jones
London: (1978) Gordon Fraser Gallery Ltd.
(Jones.1983)
"Scharoun Houses"
in
Architectural Review, (XXII.83, p59)
Peter Blundell Jones
London: (1983)
Bibliography
-181-
(Jordy.1963)
"The Symbolic Essence of Modern European Architecture of
the Twenties and its continuing Influence"
in
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians,
(V.XXII, No.3, X.63)
William H. Jordy
Amherst, MA: (1963)
(Junghanns.1970)
Bruno Taut; 1880 -
1938
Kurt Junghanns
Berlin: (1970) Deutsche Bauakademie
(Klein.1926)
Tagesfragen der Berliner Wohnungswirtschaftin
Staedtebau, (Nr.6)
Alexander Klein
Berlin: (1926)
(Klein.1934)
Das Einfamilienhaus Suedtyp
Alexander Klein
Stuttgart: (1934) Verlag Julius Hoffmann
(Koch.1920)
Das schoene Heim, Ratgeber fuer die Ausgestaltung und
Einrichtung der Wohnung
Alexander Koch
Darmstadt: (1920)
(Kuhn.1970)
The Structure of Scientific Revolution
Thomas Kuhn
Chicago: (1970) University of Chicago Press
(Lehmann-Haupt.1973)
Art under a Dictatorship
Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt
New York: (1973) Octagon Books
(Lubahn.1938)
Praktische Heimstaettenarbeit
Johannes Lubahn
Berlin: (1938) Beamtenheimstaettenwerk des Reichsbundes
der Deutschen Beamten
-182-
Bibliography
(Macleod.1978)
Style and Society
Robert Macleod
London: (1971) RIBA Publications Limited
(Miller-Lane.1968)
Architecture and Politics in Germany 1918 - 1945
Barbara Miller-Lane
Cambridge, MA: (1968) Harvard University Press
(Miller-Lane.1978)
Nazi Ideology before 193-3
Barbara Miller-Lane, Leila J. Rupp
Austin, TX: (1978) University of Texas Press
(Millon.1978)
Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics
Henry A. Millon, Linda Nochlin
Cambridge, MA: (1978) MIT Press
(Neufert.1932)
"Wohnbauten der Berliner Sommerschau 1932
I Das Anbauhaus"
in
Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung, (v.52, n.32,
p.373ff, 1932)
Ernst Neufert
Berlin:
(Neufert.1936)
Bau-Entwurfslehre
Ernst Neufert
Berlin: (1938) Bauwelt Verlag
(Neufert.7.1943)
"Moeglichkeiten der Gestaltung beim Kriegseinheittyp"
in
der Wohnungsbau in Deutschland, (n.17/18, IX.43)
Ernst Neufert
Berlin: (1943)
(Neufert.9.1943)
"Moeglichkeiten der Gestaltung beim Kriegseinheittyp"
in
der Wohnungsbau in Deutschland, (n.17/18, IX.43)
Ernst Neufert
Berlin: (1943)
Bibliography
-183-
(Olson.1970)
The Special View of History
Charles Olson
Berkeley: (1970)
(Pehnt.1980)
"Distant Goals, Great Hopes:
The Deutscher Werkbund 1918 - 1924"
The Werkbund
in
Wolfgang Pehnt
London: (1980) The Design Council
(Peltz-Dreckman.1978)
National Sozialistischer Siedlungsbau
(Versuch einer Analyse der die Siedlungspolitik
bestimmenden Faktoren am Beispiel des
Nationalsozialismus)
Ute Peltz-Dreckman
Muenchen: (1978) Minerva
(Petsch.1976)
Baukunst und Stadtplanung im Dritten Reich
Joachim Petsch
Muenchen: (1976) Carl Hanser
(Petsch.1980)
"The Deutscher Werkbund from 1907 to 1933 and the
Movements for the 'Reform of Life and Culture' "
The Werkbund
in
Joachim Petsch
London: (1980) The Design Council
(Pfankuch.1970)
Adolf Rading: Bauten, Entwuerfe und Erlaeuterungen
Peter Pfankuch
Berlin: (1970) Gebr. Mann Verlag
(Pfankuch.1974)
Hans Scharoun
Peter Pfankuch
Berlin: (1974) Akademie der Kuenste
(Pohrt.1980)
"Nationalsozialismus und KZ-System"
(Von der Endloesung zu ihrer Alternative)
Ausverkauf
in
Wolfgang Pohrt
Berlin: (1980) Rotbuch Verlag
-184-
Bibliography
(Posener.1972)
"Haering, Scharoun, Mies, LeCorbusier"
in
From Schinkel to the Bauhaus
Julius Posener
London: (1972) Lund Humphries
(Posener.1980)
"Between Art and Industry - the Deutscher Werkbund"
The Werkbund
Julius Posener
London: (1980) The Design Council
(Reichow.1949)
Organische Baukunst
Hans Bernhard Reichow
Braunschweig: (1949) Georg Wesatermann
(Scharoun.1925)
"Inaugural Lecture at the State Academy for Art and
Crafts, Breslau"
in
Hans Scharoun
Hans Scharoun
Pfankuch, ed.
Berlin: Gebr. Mann Verlag
(Scharoun.1932)
in
Bauwelt, (n.6, 1932)
Hans Scharoun
NB
(Pfankuch.1974, p79)
Berlin: (1932)
(Scharoun.1955)
"Die Breslauer Akademie - Experiment und Erfuellung"
in
Maler der Breslauer Akademie
Hans Scharoun
Berlin: (1955) Haus am Luetzowplatz
(Scharoun.a.1957)
"Ordnungsprinzipien und Begriffe, welche zu einer
Stadtstruktur zu fuehrenvermoegen"
"Stadtstruktur und ihre Wandlung im geschichtlichen
Ablauf"
"Die Bedeutung der Raum- und Zeit- Struktur"
in
Medizin und Staedtebau, (165ff, 248ff, 507ff)
Hans Scharoun
Paul Vogler, Erich Kuehn, ed.
Muenchen: (1957)
Bibliography
-185-
(Scharoun.b.1957)
"Struktur in Raum und Zeit"
in
Handbuch moderner Architektur, (p.13ff)
Hans Scharoun
Reinhard Jaspert, ed.
Berlin: (1957)
(Schnaidt.1965)
Hannes Meyer
(Bauten, Projekte, Schriften)
Claude Schnaidt
Stuttgart: (1965) Verlag Gerd Hatje
(Schuhmacher.1934)
Ladenbau
Die Baubuecher (15)
Adolf Schuhmacher
(1934), Address= <Stuttgart) Julius Hoffmann
(Schumacher.1955)
Stroemungen in Deutscher Baukunst seit 1800
Fritz Schumacher
Memmingen/Allgaeu: (1955) Wilhelm Wortmann
(Schwab.1973)
Das Buch vom Bauen
Alexander Schwab
Duesseldorf: (1973)
(Schwarz.1969)
Die Form - Stimme des Deutschen Werkbundes 1925
Felix Schwarz, Frank Gloor, ed.
Guetersloh: (1969) Bertelsmann Fachverlag
(Serke.1980)
Die verbrannten Dichter
Juergen Serke
Frenkfurt a.M.: (1980) Fischer Taschenbuch
(Smith.1982)
Feind schreibt mit
(Ein amerikanischer Korrespondent erlebt
Nazi-Deutschland)
Howard K. Smith
Berlin: (1982 [1942]) Rotbuch Verlag
-
1934
-186-
Bibliography
(Staber.1962)
"Hans Scharoun, ein Beitrag zum Organischen Bauen"
Zodiac (no.10)
Margit Staber
(1962)
(Stegemann.1937)
Vom Wirtschaftlichen Bauen
Auftrag der Deutschen Akademie fuer Bauforschung
Rudolf Stegemann
Dresden: (1937) Verlag Laube Druck-GmbH
(Steiner.1967)
Language and Silence
Georg Steiner
Forge Village, MA: (1967) Murray Printing Co.
(Steinmann.1979)
CIAM: Dokumente 1928-1939
Martin Steinmann, ed.
Basel: (1979) Birkhaeuser
(Stollberg.1929)
Jahrbuch der Baukunst 1928/29
Otto Stollberg
Berlin: (1929)
(Taut.1927)
Bauen - der neue Wohnbau
Bruno Taut
Berlin: (1927) Klinkman und Bierman
(Taylor.1974)
The Word in Stone
Robert Taylor
Berkeley: (1974) University of California Press
(Tessenow.1961)
die kleine und die grosze Stadt
Heinrich Tessenow
Hans Hasche, ed.
Muenchen: (1961) Callwey
(Teut.1967)
Architektur im Dritten Reich 1933 - 1945
Anna Teut
Berlin: (1967) Ullstein GmbH
Bibliography
-187-
(Verein Deutsches Holz.1933)
Die 35 Einfamilienhaeuser der Holzsiedlung am Kochenhof
Verein Deutsches Holz, ed.
Stuttgart: (1933) Julius Hoffmann
(Voelckers.1939)
Deutsche Hausfibel
Otto Voelckers
Leipzig: (1939) L. Staackmann Verlag
(Voelckers.1941)
Das Grundrisswerk
(1400 Grundrisse ausgefuehrter Bauten jeder Art mit
Erlaeuterungen, Schnitten und Schaubildern)
Otto Voelckers
Stuttgart: (1941) Julius Hoffmann Verlag
(Wagerin.1976)
Heinrich Tessenow, ein Baumeister; 1876 - 1950
Gerda Wagerin, Gerhard Weiss
Essen: (1976) Richard Bacht
(Wagner.1932)
Das Wachsende Haus
Martin Wagner
Berlin-Leipzig: (193,2)
(Walz.1979)
Wohnungsbau- und Industrieansiedlungspolitik in
Deutschland 1933-1939
Manfred Walz
Frankfurt a.M.: (1979) Campus Verlag GmbH
(Whyte.1981)
Bruno Taut, Baumeister einer Neuen Welt
Boyd Jain Whyte
Stuttgart: (1981)
(Wiedemann.1936)
Industrielle Heimstaettensiedlung
(der Weg zur Krisenfestigkeit des Deutschen
Arbeiters)
W. Wiedemann
Berlin: (1936) VDI Verlag GmbH
-188-
(Wilson.1969)
"Light on Scharoun"
in
Architectural Review, (V165, V.69)
Colin St.John Wilson
(1969)
(Wingler.1977)
Kunsthochschulreform 1900-1933
Hans M. Wingler, ed.
Berlin: (1977) Gebr. Mann Verlag
(Wulf.1983)
Die bildenden Kuenste im Dritten Reich
Joseph Wulf
Frankfurt/M.: (1983) Ullstein
(Zeman.1973)
Nazi Propaganda
Z.A.B. Zeman
New York: (1973) Oxford University Press
Bibliography
Abbreviations
-189-
Appendix C
Abbreviations
The abbreviations used in the above discussion have the
following meanings:
BWG
DAF
DWB
GWG
NS
PBFD
RAM
RFM
RGB1
RkbK
RmVaP
Bremerhavener Wohnungsbaugesellschaft m.b.H.
Deutsche Arbeitsfront
Deutscher Werkbund
Gemeinnttzige Wohnstattenbaugesellschaft
m.b.H.
Nationalsozialismus
Preuszischen Bau- und Finanzdirektion
Reichsarbeitsministerium
Reichsministerium der Finanzen
Reichsgesetzblatt
Reichskammer der bildenden Kfnste
Reichsministerium far Volksaufklarung und
Propaganda
-190-
List of Figures
Appendix D
List of Figures
Figure 2-1:
Bochum Rathaus
Figure.2-2:
Breslau-Zimpel Schule
Figure 2-3:
Berlin Justizgebaeude
Figure 2-4:
Friedrichstrasze competition
Figure 2-5:
Friedrichstrasze competition
Figure 2-6:
Stock exchange
Figure 2-7:
"WeTte" house design competition
Figure 2-8:
GuGaLi prefabricated exhibition -house
Figure 4-1:
Breslau bachelors' dwellings -1929: View.
Figure 4-2:
Breslau bachelors' dwellings: Plan.
Figure 4-3:
Breslau-Zimpel school -1928
Figure 4-4:
"Justizgebaeude" -1928
Figure 4-6:
Kaiserdamm apartment house.
Figure 4-5:
Hohenzollerndamm apartment house.
Figure 4-7:
Dahlem-Dorf development -1927: axonometric
view.
Figure 4-8:
Kaiserdamm apartment block -1929.
Figure 4-9:
SKerensstadt site plan.
Figure 4-10:
Weissenhof exhibition house.
25
25
25
25
26
26
26
26
73
73
74
74
75
75
79
79
80
80
List of Figures
Figure 4-12:
Siemensstadt view.
Figure 4-11:
Siemensstadt development Jungfernheideweg
elevation.
Figure 4-13:
(RaaTng) Rading house: Living room view.
Figure 4-14:
(Rading) Rabe house: Fireplace alcove
Figure 4-15:
SchiiiTnke house: Entry hall elevation
Figure 4-16:
SchiIinke house: Ground level; linoleum plan
Figure 4-17:
SchiTnke house: Ground level; reflected ceiling
plan.
Figure 4-18:
SchiiRnke house: Master bedroom; reflected
ceiling plan.
Figure 4-19:
SchHiTnke house south elevation; first version.
Figure 4-20:
Schminke house: south elevation; second
version.
Figure 4-21:
SEhiTnke house: ground floor plan.
Figure 4-22:
Breslau exhibition bachelor dwellings: plan.
Figure 4-23:
SEhwTm~mbad am Zoo -1927.
Figure 4-24:
"Dwelling Space": watercolor -c.1942.
Figure 4-25:
Schminke house: View of living area
Figure 4-26:
Strauss house: View of living area.
Figure 4-27:
Scharf house: View to studio.
Fiqure 4-28:
Strauss house: Excerpt from submission drawings.
Figure 4-29:
Priort housing estate.
Figure 4-30:
Bonk house: SE view.
Figure 4-31:
Noack house: elevation
Figure 4-32:
Baensch house: ground floor plan
-191-
84
84
85
85
85
85
86
86
86
86
87
87
88
88
134
135
135
136
136
136
138
138
-192-
List of Figures
Figure 4-33:
Noack house: plan
Figure 4-34:
Mohrmann house: second level framing plan
Figure 4-35:
Strausz house: preliminary schematic design
Figure 4-36:
Strausz house: south elevation
Figure 4-37:
Strausz house: altered permit drawing
Figure 4-38:
Strausz house: street elevation
Figure 4-39:
Moll house: composite section.
Figure 4-40:
Biskupski house: composite section.
Figure 4-42:
Biskupski house: plan
Figure 4-41:
Strausz house: schematic plan. (note stair
added
Figure 4-43:
Siemensstadt.
Figure 4-44:
Schminke house.
Figure 4-45:
Moll house
Figure 4-46:
Mattern House
Figure 4-47:
Endell house
Figure 4-48:
Figure 4-49:
Mattern house: wall relief in dining area.
Figure 4-50:
Moll house section, indicating wall relief.
Figure 4-51:
Moll house: view into dining area: note
ceiling.
Figure 4-53:
Moeller addition: rendering.
Figure 4-52:
Endell house: south elevation.
Figure 4-54:
Scharf house: section
Figure 4-55:
Mohrmann house: main floor plan
138
138
139
139
139
139
140
140
141
141
142
142
143
143
144
144
144
144
145
145
147
147
List of Figures
Figure 4-56:
Biskupski house: plan
Figure 4-57:
Weigand House: plan
Figure 4-58:
Hoffmeyer house: plan.
Figure 4-59:
Wenzeck house: plan, first version.
Figure 4-60:
Schiiinke house: Plan 1929-1933
Figure 4-61:
Siemensstadt apartment: Plan 1930
Figure 4-62:
Neue Heimat housing: Types 1941.
Figure 4-63:
-193-
150
150
151
151
154
154
154
155
Baensch house: street facade.
Figure 4-64:
Mohrmann house: street elevation.
Figure 4-65:
Weigand house: street elevation.
Figure 4-66:
Weidhaas house: street elevation.
Figure 4-67:
Mohrmann house: south elevation.
Figure 4-68:
Mohrmann house: Ground floor plan.
Figure 4-69:
Weigand house: south elevation.
Figure 4-70:
Weigand house: Ground floor plan.
Figure 4-71:
Weidhaas house: south elevation.
Figure 4-72:
Weidhass house: Ground floor plan.
Figure 4-73:
Bonk house: ground plan.
Figure 4-74:
Moll house: main floor plan.
155
156
156
157
157
157
157
157
157
158
158